* 


THE  UNIVERSITY 


OF  ILLINOIS 


LIBRARY 


184- 

P£9dE  j 

|9oo 
V.  3 


The  person  charging  this  material  is  re¬ 
sponsible  for  its  return  to  the  library  from 
which  it  was  withdrawn  on  or  before  the 
Latest  Date  stamped  below. 

Theft,  mutilation,  and  underlining  of  books  are  reasons 
for  disciplinary  action  and  may  result  in  dismissal  from 
the  University. 

To  renew  call  Telephone  Center,  333-8400 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS  LIBRARY  AT  URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 


L161— 0-1096 


Digitized  by  the  internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


https://archive.org/details/dialoguesofplato03plat_0 


PLATO  AND  ARISTOTLE 


Edition  Up  ffiuxp 


The 

Dialogues  of  Plato 

Translated  into  English  with  Analyses  and  Introductions 


By 

B.  JOWETT,  M.  A. 

Master  of  Balliol  College 

Regius  Professor  of  Greek  in  the  University  of  Oxford 


In  Four  Volumes 
Bnlum*  IU 

THE  TRIAL  AND  DEATH 
OF  SOCRATES 


National  IGibranj  (Eompamj 

Hark 

lEbtttxm  Sr  £uxr 


LIMITED  TO  ONE  THOUSAND  SETS 


Iff- 

=  Fd>9  d 

*  v  /  2>0£> 

*  '  K  -3 

CONTENTS 

-MENO; 

The  Immortality  of  the  Soul  .  . 

EUTHYPHRO:  j  / 

Piety  and  Impiety  .  . 

APOLOGY: 

The  Defence  of  Socrates  -  .  .  . 

CRITO: 

Socrates  in  Prison  . 

-PHAEDO. 

The  Last  Day  of  Socrates’  Life  .  . 

THE  SYMPOSIUM:  / 

The  Character  of  Socrates 

a 

PHAEDRUS 


MENO 


INTRODUCTION 


This  Dialogue  begins  abruptly  with  a  question  of  Meno,  who 
asks  “  whether  virtue  can  be  taught.”  Socrates  replies  that  he 
does  not  as  yet  know  what  virtue  is,  and  has  never  known  any 
one  who  did.  “  Then  he  can  not  have  met  Gorgias  when  he  was 
at  Athens.”  Yes,  Socrates  had  met  him,  but  he  has  a  bad  mem¬ 
ory,  and  has  forgotten  what  Gorgias  said.  Will  Meno  tell  him 
his  own  notion,  which  is  probably  not  very  different  from  that 
of  Gorgias?  “O  yes  —  nothing  easier;  there  is  the  virtue  of 
a  man,  of  a  woman,  of  an  old  man,  and  of  a  child;  there  is  a 
virtue  of  every  age  and  state  of  life,  all  of  which  may  be  easily 
described.” 

Socrates  reminds  Meno  that  this  is  only  an  enumeration  of 
the  virtues  and  not  a  definition  of  the  notion  which  is  common 
to  them  all.  Meno  tries  again;  this  time  he  defines  virtue  to 
be  “  the  power  of  command.”  But  to  this,  again,  exceptions  are 
taken.  For  there  must  be  a  virtue  of  those  who  obey,  as  well 
as  of  those  who  command;  and  the  power  of  command  must 
be  justly  or  not  unjustly  exercised.  Meno  is  ever  ready  to  admit 
that  justice  is  virtue:  “Would  you  say  virtue  or  a  virtue,  for 
there  are  other  virtues,  such  as  courage,  temperance,  and  the 
like;  just  as  round  is  a  figure,  and  black  and  white  are  colors, 
and  yet  there  are  other  figures  and  other  colors.  Let  Meno  take 
the  examples  of  figure  and  color,  and  try  to  define  them.”  Meno 
confesses  his  inability,  and  after  a  process  of  interrogation,  in 
which  Socrates  explains  to  him  the  nature  of  a  “  simile  in  mul- 
tis,”  Socrates  himself  defines  figure  as  “  the  accompaniment  of 
color.”  But  some  one  may  object  that  he  does  not  know  the 
meaning  of  the  word  “  color ;  ”  and  if  he  is  a  candid  friend,  and 
not  a  mere  disputant,  Socrates  is  willing  to  furnish  him  with  a 
simpler  and  more  philosophical  definition,  in  which  no  disputed 
word  is  allowed  to  intrude:  “  Figure  is  the  limit  of  form.” 
Meno  imperiously  insists  that  he  must  still  have  a  definition  of 
color.  To  which,  after  some  playful  raillery,  Socrates  is  in¬ 
duced  to  reply,  “  that  color  is  the  effluence  of  form  in  due  pro¬ 
portion  to  the  sight.”  This  definition  is  exactly  suited  to  the 
taste  of  Meno,  who  welcomes  the  familiar  language  of  Gorgias 

3 


4 


MENO 


and  Empedocles.  Socrates  is  of  opinion  that  the  more  abstract 
or  dialectical  definition  of  figure  is  far  better. 

Now  that  Meno  has  been  made  to  understand  the  nature  of 
a  general  definition,  he  answers  in  the  spirit  of  a  Greek  gentle¬ 
man,  and  in  the  words  of  a  poet,  “  that  virtue  is  to  delight  in 
things  honorable,  and  to  have  the  power  of  getting  them.”  This 
is  a  nearer  approximation  than  he  has  yet  made  to  a  complete 
definition,  and,  regarded  as  a  piece  of  proverbial  or  popular 
morality  is  not  far  from  the  truth.  But  the  objection  is  urged 
“  that  the  honorable  is  the  good,”  and  as  every  one  desires  the 
good,  the  point  of  the  definition  is  contained  in  the  last  words, 
“  the  power  of  getting  them.”  “  And  they  must  be  got  justly 
or  with  justice.”  The  definition  will  then  stand  thus:  “Virtue 
is  the  power  of  getting  good  with  justice.”  But  justice  is  a  part 
of  virtue,  and  therefore  virtue  is  the  getting  of  good  with  a  part 
of  virtue.  The  definition  repeats  the  word  defined. 

Meno  complains  that  the  conversation  of  Socrates  has  the 
effect  of  a  torpedo’s  shock  upon  him.  When  he  talks  with  other 
persons  he  has  plenty  to  say  about  virtue;  in  the  presence  of 
Socrates,  his  thoughts  seem  to  desert  him.  Socrates  replies  that 
he  is  only  the  cause  of  perplexity  in  others,  because  he  is  himself 
perplexed.  He  proposes  to  continue  the  inquiry.  But  how, 
asks  Meno,  can  he  inquire  either  into  what  he  knows  or  into  what 
he  does  not  know?  This  is  a  sophistical  puzzle,  which,  as  Soc¬ 
rates  remarks,  saves  a  great  deal  of  trouble  to  him  who  accepts 
it.  But  the  puzzle  has  a  real  difficulty  latent  under  it,  to  which 
Socrates  replies  in  a  figure.  The  difficulty  is  the  origin  of  knowl¬ 
edge. 

He  professes  to  have  heard  from  priests  and  priestesses,  and 
from  the  poet  Pindar,  of  an  immortal  soul  which  is  always  learn¬ 
ing  and  forgetting  in  successive  periods  of  existence,  wandering 
over  all  places  of  the  upper  and  under  world,  having  seen  and 
known  all  things  at  one  time  or  other,  and  by  association  out  of 
one  thing  capable  of  recovering  all.  For  nature  is  of  one  kin¬ 
dred;  and  every  soul  has  a  seed  or  germ  which  may  be  devel¬ 
oped  into  all  knowledge.  The  existence  of  this  latent  knowledge 
is  further  proved  by  the  interrogation  of  one  of  Meno’s  slaves, 
who,  in  the  skilful  hands  of  Socrates,  is  made  to  acknowledge 
some  elementary  relations  of  geometrical  figures.  The  theorem 
that  the  square  of  the  diagonal  is  double  the  square  of  the  side  — 
that  famous  discovery  of  primitive  mathematics,  in  honor  of 
which  the  legendary  Pythagoras  is  said  to  have  sacrificed  a  heca¬ 
tomb  —  is  elicited  from  him.  The  first  step  in  the  process  of 


INTRODUCTION 


5 


teaching  has  made  him  conscious  of  his  own  ignorance.  He  has 
had  the  “  torpedo’s  shock  ”  given  him,  and  is  the  better  for  the 
operation.  But  whence  had  the  uneducated  man  this  knowledge? 
He  had  never  learned  geometry  in  this  world;  nor  was  it  born 
with  him;  he  must  therefore  have  had  it  in  a  previous  existence. 

After  Socrates  has  given  this  specimen  of  the  true  nature  of 
teaching,  the  original  question  of  the  teachableness  of  virtue  is 
renewed.  Again  he  professes  a  desire  to  know  “  what  virtue  is  ” 
first.  But  he  is  willing  to  argue  the  question,  as  mathematicians 
say,  under  an  hypothesis.  He  will  assume  that  if  virtue  is  knowl¬ 
edge,  then  virtue  can  be  taught. 

Socrates  has  no  difficulty  in  showing  that  virtue  is  a  good,  and 
that  goods,  whether  of  body  or  mind,  must  be  under  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  knowledge.  Upon  the  assumption  just  made,  then,  virtue 
is  teachable.  But  where  are  the  teachers?  There  are  none 
found.  This  is  extremely  discouraging.  Virtue  is  no  sooner  dis¬ 
covered  to  be  teachable,  than  the  discovery  follows  that  it  is 
not  taught.  Virtue,  therefore,  is  and  is  not  teachable. 

In  this  dilemma  an  appeal  is  made  to  Anytus,  who  is  a  respec¬ 
table  and  wrell-to-do  citizen  of  the  old  school,  and  happens  to  be 
present.  He  is  asked  “  whether  Meno  shall  go  to  the  Sophists 
and  be  taught.”  The  very  suggestion  of  this  throws  him  into  a 
rage.  “To  whom,  then,  shall  Meno  go?”  asks  Socrates.  To 
any  Athenian  gentleman  —  to  the  great  Athenian  statesmen  of 
past  times.  Socrates  replies  here,  thah/Themistocles,  Pericles, 
and  other  great  men,  never  taught,  UpR*  sons  anything  worth 
learning;  and  they  would  surely,  if  they  could,  have  imparted 
to  them  their  own  political  wisdom.  Anytus  is  angry  at  the 
imputation  which  is  supposed  to  be  cast  on  his  favorite  states¬ 
men,  and  breaks  off  with  a  significant  threat. 

Socrates  returns  to  the  consideration  of  the  question  “  whether 
virtue  is  teachable,”  which  was  denied  on  the  ground  that  there 
are  no  teachers  of  it:  (for  the  Sophists  are  bad  teachers,  and 
the  rest  of  the  world  do  not  profess  to  teach.)  But  there  is 
another  point  which  we  failed  to  observe,  and  in  which  Gorgias 
has  never  instructed  Meno,  nor  Prodicus  Socrates.  This  is  the 
nature  of  right  opinion.  For  virtue  may  be  under  the  guidance 
of  right  opinion  as  well  as  knowledge;  and  right  opinion  is  for 
practical  purposes  as  good  as  knowledge,  but  is  incapable  of 
being  taught,  and  is  also  liable  to  “  walk  off,”  because  not  bound 
by  the  tie  of  the  cause.  This  is  the  sort  of  instinct  which  is 
possessed  by  statesmen  who  are  not  wise  or  knowing  persons,  but 
only  inspired  or  divine.  The  higher  virtue,  which  is  identical 


6 


MENO 


with  knowledge,  is  an  ideal  only.  If  the  statesman  had  this 
knowledge,  and  could  teach  what  he  knew,  he  would  be  like 
Tiresias  in  the  world  below,  —  “he  alone  would  have  wisdom, 
while  the  rest  flit  as  shadows.” 

This  Dialogue  is  an  attempt  to  answer  the  question.  Can  vir¬ 
tue  be  taught?  No  one  would  either  ask  or  answer  such  a  ques¬ 
tion  in  modern  times.  But  in  the  age  of  Socrates  it  was  only 
by  an  effort  that  the  mind  could  rise  to  a  general  notion  of  virtue 
as  distinct  from  the  particular  virtues  of  courage,  liberality,  and 
the  like.  And  when  a  hazy  conception  of  this  was  attained,  it 
was  only  by  a  further  effort  that  the  question  of  the  teachable¬ 
ness  of  virtue  could  be  resolved. 

The  answer  which  is  given  by  Plato  is  paradoxical  enough, 
and  seems  rather  intended  to  stimulate  than  to  satisfy  inquiry. 
Virtue  is  knowledge,  and  therefore  virtue  can  be  taught.  But 
virtue  is  not  taught,  and  therefore  in  this  higher  and  ideal  sense 
there  is  no  virtue  and  no  knowledge.  The  teaching  of  the  Soph¬ 
ists  is  confessedly  inadequate,  and  Meno,  who  is  their  pupil,  is 
ignorant  of  the  very  nature  of  general  terms.  He  can  only 
y  produce  out  of  their  armory  the  sophism,  “  that  you  can  neither 
inquire  into  what  you  know  nor  into  what  you  do  not  know ;  ” 
to  which  Socrates  replies  by  his  theory  of  reminiscence. 

To  the  doctrine  that  virtue  is  knowledge,  Plato  has  been  con¬ 
stantly  tending  in  the  previous  Dialogues.  But  here  the  new 
truth  is  no  sooner  found  than  it  seems  to  vanish  away.  “If  there 
is  knowledge,  there  must  be  teachers ;  and  where  are  the  teach¬ 
ers  ?  ”  There  is  no  knowledge  in  the  higher  sense  of  systematic, 
connected,  reasoned  knowledge,  such  as  may  one  day  be  attained, 
and  such  as  Plato  himself  seems  to  see  in  some  far  off  vision  of 
a  single  science.  And  there  are  no  teachers  in  the  higher  sense 
of  the  word;  that  is  to  say,  no  real  teachers  who  will  arouse 
the  spirit  of  inquiry  in  their  pupils,  and  not  merely  instruct  them 
in  rhetoric  or  impart  to  them  ready-made  information  for  a  fee 
of  “  one  ”  or  of  “  fifty  drachms.”  Plato  is  desirous  of  deepen¬ 
ing  the  notion  of  education,  and  therefore  he  asserts  the  seeming 
paradox  that  there  are  no  educators. 

But  there  is  still  a  possibility  which  must  not  be  overlooked. 
Even  if  there  is  no  knowledge,  as  has  been  proved  by  “  the 
wretched  state  of  education,”  there  may  be  right  opinion.  This 
is  a  sort  of  guessing  or  divination  which  rests  on  no  knowledge 
'  of  causes,  and  is  incommunicable  to  others.  This  is  what  our 
statesmen  have,  as  is  proved  by  the  circumstance  that  they  are 


INTRODUCTION 


7 


unable  to  impart  their  knowledge  to  others.  Those  who  are 
possessed  of  this  gift  can  not  be  said  to  be  men  of  science  or 
philosophers,  but  they  are  inspired  and  divine. 

There  is  no  trace  of  irony  in  this  curious  passage,  which  forms 
the  concluding  portion  of  the  dialogue.  Nor  again  does  Plato 
mean  to  intimate  that  the  supernatural  or  divine  is  the  true  basis 
of  human  life.  To  him  knowledge,  if  only  attainable  in  this 
world,  is  of  all  things  the  most  divine.  But,  like  other  philoso¬ 
phers,  he  is  willing  to  admit  that  “  probability  is  the  guide  of 
life and  at  the  same  time  is  desirous  to  contrast  “  the  wisdom 
which  governs  the  world  ”  with  true  wisdom.  There  are  many 
instincts,  judgments,  and  anticipations  of  the  human  mind  which 
can  not  be  reduced  to  rule,  and  of  which  the  grounds  can  not 
always  be  given  in  words.  A  person  may  have  some  skill  or 
latent  experience  which  he  is  able  to  use  himself  and  is  yet  unable 
to  teach  others,  because  he  has  no  principles,  and  is  not  able  to 
collect  or  arrange  his  ideas.  He  has  practice,  but  not  theory; 
art,  but  not  science.  This  is  a  true  fact  of  psychology,  which 
is  recognized  by  Plato  in  this  passage. 

Also  here,  as  in  the  Phaedrus,  Plato  appears  to  acknowledge 
an  unreasoning  element  in  the  higher  nature  of  man.  The  phi¬ 
losopher  only  has  knowledge,  and  yet  the  statesman  and  the 
poet  are  inspired.  There  may  be  a  sort  of  irony  in  regarding 
in  this  way  the  gifts  of  genius.  But  there  is  no  reason  to  sup¬ 
pose  that  he  is  deriding  them  any  more  than  he  is  deriding  the 
phenomena  of  love  or  of  enthusiasm  in  the  Symposium,  or  of 
oracles  in  the  Apology,  or  of  divine  intimations  when  he  is  speak¬ 
ing  of  the  daemonium  of  Socrates.  He  recognizes  the  lower 
form  of  right  opinion,  as  well  as  the  higher  one  of  science,  in 
the  spirit  of  one  who  desires  to  include  in  his  philosophy  every 
aspect  of  human  life;  just  as  he  recognizes  the  existence  of 
popular  opinion  as  a  fact,  and  the  Sophists  as  the  expression 
of  it. 

This  Dialogue  contains  the  first  intimation  of  the  doctrine  of 
reminiscence  and  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  It  may  be 
observed  that  the  fanciful  notion  of  preexistence  is  combined 
with  a  t,r,U£-¥k-W  of  the  unity  of  knowledge,  and  of  the  associa¬ 
tion  of  ideas.  The  germs  of  two  valuable  principles  of  educa¬ 
tion  may  also  be  gathered  from  the  “  doctrine  of  priests  and 
priestesses:  (1)  that  true  knowledge  is  a  knowledge  of  causes; 

and  (2)  that  the  process  of  learning  consists  not  in  what  is 
brought  to  the  learner,  but  in  what  is  drawn  out  of  him.  The 
philosophy  of  ideas  is  here  presented  in  a  less  developed  form. 


8 


MENO 


than  in  the  Phaedo  and  Phaedrus.  Nothing  is  said  of  the  pre- 
existence  of  ideas  of  justice,  temperance,  and  the  like.  Nor  is 
Socrates  positive  of  anything  but  the  duty  of  inquiry.  The  doc¬ 
trine  of  reminiscence  too  is  explained  in  a  manner  more  in  ac¬ 
cordance  with  fact  and  experience  out  of  the  affinities  of  nature. 
Modern  philosophy  says  that  all  things  in  nature  are  dependent 
on  one  another;  the  ancient  philosopher  has  the  same  truth 
latent  in  his  mind  when  he  says  that  out  of  one  thing  all  the  rest 
may  be  recovered. 

Some  lesser  traits  of  the  dialogue  may  be  noted  also,  such  as 
the  acute  observation  that  Meno  prefers  the  familiar  definition, 
which  is  embellished  with  poetical  language,  to  the  better  and 
truer  one;  or  (2)  the  shrewd  reflection,  which  may  admit  of  an 
application  to  modern  as  well  as  to  ancient  teachers,  that  the 
Sophists  having  made  large  fortunes,  this  must  surely  be  a  cri¬ 
terion  of  their  powers  of  teaching,  for  that  no  man  could  get  a 
living  by  shoemaking  who  was  not  a  good  shoemaker;  or  (3) 
the  remark  conveyed,  almost  in  a  word,  that  the  verbal  sceptic 
is  saved  the  labor  of  thought  and  inquiry.  Characteristic  also 
of  the  temper  of  the  Socratic  inquiry  is,  (4)  the  proposal  to 
discuss  the  teachableness  of  virtue  under  an  hypothesis,  after  the 
manner  of  the  mathematicians,  and  (5)  the  repetition  of  the 
favorite  doctrine  which  occurs  so  frequently  in  the  earlier  and 
more  Socratic  Dialogues,  and  gives  a  color  to  all  of  them  —  that 
mankind  only  desire  evil  through  ignorance. 

The  character  of  Meno,  like  that  of  Critias,  has  no  relation 
to  the  actual  circumstances  of  his  life.  Plato  is  silent  about  his 
treachery  to  the  ten  thousand  Greeks,  which  Xenophon  has  re¬ 
corded,  as  he  is  also  silent  about  the  crimes  of  Critias.  He  is 
a  Thessalian  Alcibiades,  rich  and  luxurious  —  a  spoiled  child  of 
fortune,  and  is  described  as  the  hereditary  friend  of  the  great 
king.  Like  Alcibiades,  he  is  inspired  with  an  ardent  desire  of 
knowledge,  and  is  equally  willing  to  learn  of  Socrates  and  the 
Sophists.  He  may  be  regarded  as  standing  in  the  same  relation 
to  Gorgias  as  Hippocrates  in  the  Protagoras  to  the  other  great 
Sophist.  He  is  the  sophisticated  youth  on  whom  Socrates  tries 
his  cross-examining  powers,  with  a  view  of  exhibiting  him  and 
his  teachers  in  their  true  light,  just  as  in  the  Charmides,  the 
Lysis,  and  the  Euthydemus,  he  makes  ingenuous  boyhood  the 
subject  of  a  similar  experiment.  Socrates  treats  Meno  in  a 
half  playful  manner,  and  tries  to  exhibit  him  to  himself  and  to 
the  reader  as  ignorant  of  the  very  elements  of  dialectics,  in 
which  the  Sophists  have  failed  to  instruct  their  disciple. 


INTRODUCTION 


9 


Anytus  is  the  type  of  the  narrow-minded  man  of  the  world, 
who  is  indignant  at  innovation,  and  equally  detests  the  popular 
teacher  and  the  true  philosopher.  He  seems,  like  Aristophanes, 
to  regard  the  new  opinions,  whether  of  Socrates  or  the  Sophists, 
as  fatal  to  Athenian  greatness.  He  is  of  the  same  class  as  Calli- 
cles  in  the  Gorgias,  but  of  a  different  variety;  the  immoral  and 
sophistical  doctrines  of  Callicles  are  not  attributed  to  him.  The 
moderation  with  which  he  is  described  is  remarkable,  if  he  be 
the  accuser  of  Socrates ;  and  this  seems  to  be  indicated  by  his 
parting  words.  Perhaps  Plato  may  have  been  desirous  of  show¬ 
ing  that  the  accusation  of  Socrates  was  not  to  be  attributed  to 
badness  or  malevolence,  but  rather  to  a  tendency  in  men’s  minds. 
Or  he  may  have  been  regardless  of  the  historical  truth  of  the 
characters  of  his  dialogue,  as  in  the  case  of  Meno  and  Critias. 
Like  Chaerephon  the  real  Anytus  was  a  democrat,  and  had 
joined  Thrasybulus  in  the  conflict  with  the  thirty. 


MENO 


PERSONS  OF  THE  DIALOGUE 

Meno.  A  Slave  of  Meno. 

Socrates.  Anytus. 

Meno.  Can  you  tell  me,  Socrates,  whether  virtue 
is  acquired  by  teaching  or  by  practice;  or  if  neither 
by  teaching  nor  by  practice,  then  whether  it  comes  to 
man  by  nature,  or  in  what  other  way? 

Socrates.  O  Meno,  there  was  a  time  when  the  Thes¬ 
salians  were  famous  among  the  other  Hellenes  only 
for  their  riches  and  their  riding ;  but  now,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  they  are  equally  famous  for  their  wisdom, 
especially  at  Larisa,  which  is  the  native  city  of  your 
friend  Aristippus.  And  this  is  Gorgias’  doing;  for 
when  he  came  there,  the  flower  of  the  Aleuadae,  of 
whom  your  lover  Aristippus  is  one,  and  the  other 
chiefs  of  the  Thessalians,  fell  in  love  with  his  wisdom. 
And  he  has  taught  you  the  habit  of  answering  ques¬ 
tions  in  a  grand  and  bold  style,  which  becomes  those 
who  know,  and  is  the  style  in  which  he  himself  answers 
all  comers;  and  any  Hellene  who  likes  may  ask  him 
anything.  How  different  is  our  lot !  my  dear  Meno. 
Here  at  Athens  there  is  a  dearth  of  the  commodity, 
and  all  wisdom  seems  to  have  emigrated  from  us  to 
you.  I  am  certain  that  if  you  were  to  ask  any  Athe¬ 
nian  whether  virtue  was  natural  or  acquired,  he  would 
laugh  in  your  face,  and  say:  Stranger,  you  have  far 
too  good  an  opinion  of  me ;  if  I  were  inspired  I  might 
answer  your  question.  But  now  I  literally  do  not 
know  what  virtue  is,  and  much  less  whether  it  is  ac- 

u 


12 


MENO 


quired  by  teaching  or  not.  And  I  myself,  Meno,  liv¬ 
ing  as  I  do  in  this  region  of  poverty,  am  as  poor  as 
the  rest  of  the  citizens;  and  I  confess  with  shame 
that  I  know  literally  nothing  about  virtue ;  and  when 
I  do  not  know  the  “  quid  ”  of  anything  how  can  I 
know  the  “  quale?  ”  How,  if  I  knew  nothing  at  all 
of  Meno,  could  I  tell  if  he  was  fair,  or  the  opposite  of 
fair ;  rich  and  noble,  or  the  reverse  of  rich  and  noble  ? 
Ho  you  think  that  I  could  ? 

Men .  No,  indeed.  But  are  you  in  earnest,  Socrates, 
in  saying  that  you  do  not  know  what  virtue  is?  And 
am  I  to  carry  back  this  report  of  you  to  Thessaly  ? 

Soc.  Not  only  that,  my  dear  boy,  but  you  may  say 
further  that  I  have  never  known  of  any  one  else  who 
did,  in  my  judgment. 

Men.  Then  you  have  never  met  Gorgias  when  he 
was  at  Athens? 

Soc.  Yes,  I  have. 

Men .  And  did  you  not  think  that  he  knew? 

Soc .  I  have  not  a  good  memory,  Meno,  and  there¬ 
fore  I  can  not  now  tell  what  I  thought  of  him  at  the 
time.  And  I  dare  say  that  he  did  know,  and  that  you 
know  what  he  said:  please,  therefore,  to  remind  me 
of  what  he  said ;  or,  if  you  would  rather,  tell  me  your 
own  view,  for  I  dare  say  that  you  and  he  think  much 

alike. 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  Then  as  he  is  not  here,  never  mind  him,  and  do 
you  tell  me.  By  the  gods,  Meno,  be  generous,  and 
tell  me  what  you  say  that  virtue  is ;  for  I  shall  be  truly 
delighted  to  find  that  I  have  been  mistaken,  and  that 
you  and  Gorgias  do  really  know  what  I  have  been 
saying  that  I  have  never  found  anybody  who  knew. 

Men.  There  will  be  no  difficulty,  Socrates,  in  an¬ 
swering  that.  Take  first  the  virtue  of  a  man:  his 
virtue  is  to  know  how  to  administer  the  state,  in  the 


MENO 


13 


administration  of  which  he  will  benefit  his  friends  and 
damage  his  enemies,  and  will  take  care  not  to  suffer 
damage  himself.  A  woman’s  virtue  may  also  be 
easily  described :  her  virtue  is  to  order  her  house,  and 
keep  what  is  indoors,  and  obey  her  husband.  Every 
age,  every  condition  of  life,  young  or  old,  male  or 
female,  bond  or  free,  has  a  different  virtue !  there  are 
virtues  numberless,  and  no  lack  of  definitions  of  them ; 
for  virtue  is  relative  to  the  actions  and  ages  of  each 
of  us  in  all  that  we  do.  And  the  same  may  be  said 
of  vice,  Socrates. 

Soc.  How  fortunate  lam,  Meno!  When  I  ask  you 
for  one  virtue,  you  present  me  with  a  swarm  of  them, 
which  are  in  your  keeping.  Suppose  that  I  carry  on 
the  figure  of  the  swarm,  and  ask  of  you,  What  is  the 
nature  of  the  bee  ?  and  you  answer  that  there  are  many 
kinds  of  bees,  and  X  reply :  But  do  bees  differ  as  bees, 
because  there  are  many  and  different  kinds  of  them ; 
or  are  they  not  rather  to  be  distinguished  by  some 
other  quality,  as  for  example  beauty,  size,  or  shane? 
How  would  you  answer  that? 

Men.  I  should  answer  that  bees  do  not  differ  from 
one  another,  as  bees. 

Soc.  And  suppose  that  I  went  on  to  say:  That  is 
what  I  want  to  know,  Meno;  tell  me  what  is  that 
quality  in  which  they  do  not  differ,  but  are  all  alike ;  — 
you  would  be  able  to  answer  that? 

Men.  I  should. 

Soc.  And  so  of  the  virtues,  however  many  and  dif- 
ferent  they  may  be,,  they  have  all  a  common  nature 
which  makes  them  virtues ;  and  on  this  he  who  would 
answer  the  question,  “What  is  virtue?”  would  do 
well  to  have  his  eye  fixed.  Do  you  understand? 

Men.  I  am  beginning  to  understand;  hut  I  do  not 
as  yet  take  hold  of  the  question  as  I  could  wish. 

Soc.  When  you  say,  Meno,  that  there  is  one  virtue 


14 


MENO 


of  a  man,  another  of  a  woman,  another  of  a  child,  and 
so  on;  does  this  apply  only  to  virtue,  or  would  you  say 
the  same  of  health,  and  size,  and  strength?  Or  is  the 
nature  of  health  always  the  same,  whether  in  man  or 
woman? 

Men.  I  should  say  that  health,  regarded  as  health, 
is  the  same,  whether  of  man  or  woman. 

Soc .  And  is  not  this  true  of  size  and  strength?  If 
a  woman  is  strong,  she  will  be  strong  by  reason  of  the 
same  form  and  of  the  same  strength  subsisting  in  her 
which  there  is  in  the  man.  I  mean  to  say  that  strength, 
as  strength,  whether  of  man  or  woman,  is  the  same. 
Is  there  any  difference? 

Men.  I  think  not. 

Soc.  And  will  not  virtue,  as  virtue,  he  the  same, 
whether  in  a  child  or  in  a  grown-up  person,  in  a 
woman  or  in  a  man? 

Men.  I  can  not  help  feeling,  Socrates,  that  this 

case  is  not  like  the  others. 

Soc.  Why?  Were  you  not  saying  that  the  virtue 
of  a  man  was  to  order  a  state,  and  the  virtue  of  a 
woman  was  to  order  a  house? 

Men .  I  did  say  that. 

Soc.  And  can  either  house  or  state  or  anything  be 
well  ordered  without  temperance  and  without  justice? 

Men.  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  Then  they  who  order  a  state  or  a  house  tem¬ 
perately  or  justly  order  them  with  temperance  and 
justice? 

Men.  Certainlv. 

Soc.  Then  both  men  and  women,  if  they  are  to  be 
good  men  and  women,  must  have  the  same  virtues  of 
temperance  and  justice? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  And  can  either  a  young  man  or  an  old  one  be 
good,  if  they  are  intemperate  and  unjust? 


MENO 


15 


Men .  They  can  not. 

Soc .  They  must  be  temperate  and  just? 

Men .  Yes. 

Soc.  Then  all  men  are  good  in  the  same  way,  and 
by  participation  in  the  same  virtues? 

Men.  That  is  the  inference. 

Soc.  And  they  surely  would  not  have  been  good 
in  the  same  way,  unless  their  virtue  had  been  the 
same? 

Men.  They  would  not. 

Soc.  Then  now  that  the  sameness  of  all  virtue  has 
been  proven,  try  and  remember  what  you  and  Gorgias 
say  that  virtue  is. 

Men.  Will  you  have  one  definition  of  them  all? 

Soc.  That  is  what  I  am  seeking. 

Men.  What  can  I  say  but  that  virtue  is  the  power 
of  governing  mankind? 

Soc.  And  does  this  definition  of  virtue  include  all 
virtue?  Is  virtue  the  same  in  a  child  and  in  a  slave, 
Meno?  Ought  the  child  to  govern  his  father,  or  the 
slave  his  master;  and  would  he  who  governed  be  any 
longer  a  slave? 

Men .  I  think  not,  Socrates. 

Soc.  No,  indeed;  there  would  be  small  reason  in 
that.  Yet  once  more,  fair  friend;  according  to  you, 
virtue  is  “  the  power  of  governing;  ”  but  do  you  not 
add  “  justly  ”  and  not  unjustly? 

Men.  Yes,  Socrates;  I  agree  to  that,  for  justice  is 
virtue. 

Soc.  Would  you  say  “virtue,”  Meno,  or  “a  vir¬ 
tue?” 

Men.  What  do  you  mean? 

Soc.  I  mean  as  I  might  say  about  anything;  that  a 
round,  for  example,  is  “  a  figure  ”  and  not  simply 

figure,”  and  I  should  say  this  because  there  are  other 
figures. 


16 


MENO 


Men .  Quite  right;  and  that  is  just  what  I  am  say¬ 
ing  about  virtue  —  that  there  are  other  virtues  as  well 
as  justice. 

Soc.  What  are  they?  tell  me  the  names  of  them,  as 
I  would  tell  you  the  names  of  the  other  figures  if  you 
asked  me. 

Men .  Courage  and  temperance  and  wisdom  and 
magnificence  are  virtues ;  and  there  are  many 
others. 

Soc.  Yes,  Meno;  and  again  we  are  in  the  same  case: 
in  searching  after  one  virtue  we  have  found  many, 
though  not  in  the  same  way  as  before;  but  we  have 
been  unable  to  find  the  common  element  which  runs 
through  them  all. 

Men.  Why,  Socrates,  even  now  I  am  not  able  to 
follow  you  in  the  attempt  to  get  at  one  common  notion 
of  virtue  as  of  other  things. 

Soc.  No  wonder;  but  I  will  try  to  arrive  a  little 
nearer  if  I  can,  for  you  know  that  all  things  have  a 
common  notion.  Suppose  now  that  some  one  asked 
you  the  question  which  I  asked  before:  Meno,  he 
would  say,  wdiat  is  figure?  And  if  you  answered 
“  roundness,”  he  would  reply  to  you,  in  my  way  of 
speaking,  by  asking  whether  you  would  say  that 
roundness  is  “  figure  ”  or  “  a  figure;  ”  and  you  would 
answer  “  a  figure.” 

Men.  Certainly. 

S oc.  And  for  this  reason  —  that  there  are  other 
figures  ? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  if  he  proceeded  to  ask,  what  other  figures 
are  there?  you  would  have  told  him. 

Men.  I  should. 

Soc.  And  if  he  similarly  asked  what  color  is,  and 
you  answered  whiteness,  and  the  questioner  rejoined, 
Would  you  say  that  whiteness  is  color  or  a  color?  you 


MENO 


17 


would  reply,  A  color,  because  there  are  other  colors  as 
well. 

Men .  I  should. 

Soc.  And  if  he  had  said,  Tell  me  what  they  are, 
you  would  have  told  him  of  other  colors  which  are 
colors  just  as  much  as  whiteness. 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc .  And  suppose  that  he  were  to  pursue  the  matter 
in  my  way,  he  would  say:  Ever  and  anon  we  are 
landed  in  particulars,  but  this  is  not  what  I  want ;  tell 
me  then,  since  you  call  them  by  a  common  name,  and 
say  that  they  are  all  figures,  even  when  opposed  to 
one  another,  what  is  that  common  nature  which  you 
designate  as  figure  —  which  comprehends  straight  as 
well  as  round,  and  is  no  more  one  than  the  other  — 
would  you  not  say  that? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  in  saying  that,  you  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  the  round  is  round  any  more  than  straight,  or  the 
straight  any  more  straight  than  round? 

Men.  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  You  only  assert  that  the  round  figure  is  not 
more  a  figure  than  the  straight,  or  the  straight  than 
the  round? 

Men.  That  is  true. 

Soc.  What  then  is  this  which  is  called  figure?  Try 
and  answer.  Suppose  that  when  a  person  asked  you 
this  question  either  about  figure  or  color,  you  were  to 
reply,  Man,  I  do  not  understand  what  you  want,  or 
know  what  you  are  saying;  he  would  look  rather 
astonished  and  say :  Do  you  not  understand  that  I  am 
looking  for  the  “  simile  in  multis?  ”  And  then  he 
might  put  the  question  in  another  form:  Meno,  he 
might  say,  what  is  that  “  simile  in  multis  ”  which  you 
call  figure,  and  which  includes  not  only  round  and 
straight  figures,  but  all?  Could  you  not  answer  that 


18 


MENO 


question,  Meno?  I  wish  that  you  would  try;  the  at¬ 
tempt  will  be  good  practice  with  a  view  to  the  answer 
about  virtue. 

Men .  I  would  rather  that  you  should  answer,  Soc¬ 
rates. 

Soc.  Shall  I  indulge  you? 

Men .  By  all  means. 

Soc .  And  then  you  will  tell  me  about  virtue? 

Men.  I  wTill. 

Soc .  Then  I  must  do  my  best,  for  there  is  a  prize  to 
be  won. 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  Well,  I  will  try  and  explain  to  you  what  fig¬ 
ure  is.  What  do  you  say  to  this  answer?  —  Figure  is 
the  only  thing  that  always  follows  color.  I  hope  that 
you  are  satisfied  with  that,  as  I  am  sure  I  should  be 
content  if  you  would  let  me  have  a  similar  definition 
of  virtue. 

Men.  But  that,  Socrates,  is  a  simple  answer. 

Soc.  Why  simple? 

Men.  Because  you  say  that  figure  is  that  which 
always  follows  color;  but  if  a  person  says  that  he  does 
not  know  what  color  is,  any  more  than  what  figure 
is  —  what  sort  of  answer  would  you  have  given  him  ? 

Soc.  I  should  have  told  him  the  truth.  And  if  he 
were  a  philosopher  of  the  eristic  and  antagonistic  sort, 
I  should  say  to  him:  You  have  my  answer,  and  if  I  am 
wrong,  your  business  is  to  take  up  the  argument  and 
refute  me.  But  if  I  were  talking  as  you  and  I  now 
are,  as  between  friends,  I  should  reply  in  a  milder 
strain  and  more  in  the  dialectician’s  way ;  that  is  to  say, 
I  should  not  only  speak  the  truth,  but  I  should  make 
use  of  premisses  which  the  person  interrogated  would 
be  willing  to  admit.  And  this  is  the  way  in  which  I 
shall  approach  you.  You  will  acknowledge,  will  you 
not,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  end,  or  termina- 


MENO 


19 


tion,  or  extremity?  —  all  of  which  words  I  use  in  the 
same  sense,  although  I  am  aware  that  Prodicus  might 
quarrel  with  us  about  this:  but  still  you,  I  am  sure, 
would  speak  of  a  thing  as  ended  or  terminated  —  that 
is  all  which  I  am  saying  —  not  anything  very  difficult. 

Men .  Yes,  I  should;  and  I  believe  that  I  under¬ 
stand  your  meaning. 

Soc.  And  you  will  speak  of  a  surface  and  also  of  a 
solid,  as  for  example  in  geometry. 

Men .  Yes. 

Soc.  Well  then,  you  are  now  in  a  condition  to  un¬ 
derstand  my  definition  of  figure.  I  define  figure  to  be 
that  in  which  the  solid  ends ;  or,  more  concisely,  as  the 
limit  of  solid. 

Men.  And  now,  Socrates,  what  is  color? 

Soc.  You  are  outrageous,  Meno,  in  thus  plaguing 
a  poor  old  man  to  give  you  an  answer,  when  you  won’t 
take  the  trouble  of  remembering  what  is  Gorgias’ 
definition  of  virtue. 

Men.  When  you  have  told  me  what  I  ask,  I  will 
tell  you,  Socrates. 

Soc.  A  man  who  was  blindfolded  has  only  to  hear 
you  talking,  and  he  would  know  that  you  are  a  fair 
creature  and  have  still  many  lovers. 

Men.  Why  do  you  say  that? 

Soc.  Why,  because  you  always  speak  in  im¬ 
peratives:  like  all  beauties  when  they  are  in  their 
prime,  you  are  tyrannical;  and  also,  as  I  suspect,  you 
have  found  out  that  I  have  a  weakness  for  the  fair, 
and  therefore  I  must  humor  you  and  answer. 

Men.  Please  do. 

Soc.  Would  you  like  me  to  answer  you  after  the 
manner  of  Gorgias,  which  is  familiar  to  you? 

Men.  I  should  very  much  like  that. 

Soc.  Do  not  he  and  Empedocles  say  that  there  are 
certain  effluences  of  existence? 


20 


MENO 


Men .  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  passages  into  which  and  through  which 
the  effluences  pass? 

Men .  Exactly. 

Soc.  And  some  of  the  effluences  fit  into  the  pas¬ 
sages,  and  some  of  them  are  too  small  or  too  large? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  And  there  is  such  a  thing  as  sight? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  now,  as  Pindar  says,  “  read  my  mean¬ 
ing:  ”  —  color  is  an  effluence  of  form,  commensurate 
with  sight,  and  sensible. 

Men.  That,  Socrates,  appears  to  me  to  be  an  ad¬ 
mirable  answer. 

Soc.  Why,  yes,  because  it  is  just  such  an  one  as 
you  have  been  in  the  habit  of  hearing:  and  your  wit 
will  have  discovered  that  you  may  explain  in  the  same 
way  the  nature  of  sound  and  smell,  and  of  many  other 
similar  phenomena. 

Men.  Quite  true. 

Soc.  The  answer,  Meno,  was  in  the  orthodox 
solemn  vein,  and  therefore  was  more  acceptable  to  you 
than  the  other  answer  about  figure. 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  yet,  O  son  of  Alexidemus,  I  can  not  help 
thinking  that  the  other  was  the  better ;  and  I  am  sure 
that  you  would  be  of  the  same  opinion,  if  you  would 
only  stay  and  be  initiated,  and  were  not  compelled, 
as  you  said  yesterday,  to  go  away  before  the  mys¬ 
teries. 

Men.  But  I  will  gladly  stay,  Socrates,  if  you  will 
give  me  many  such  answers. 

Soc.  Well  then,  for  my  own  sake  as  well  as  for 
yours,  I  will  do  my  very  best;  but  I  am  afraid  that  I 
shall  not  be  able  to  give  you  very  many  as  good:  and 
now,  in  your  turn,  you  are  to  fulfil  your  promise,  and 


ME  NO 


21 


tell  me  what  virtue  is  in  the  universal;  and  do  not 
make  a  singular  into  a  plural,  as  the  facetious  say  of 
those  who  break  a  thing,  but  deliver  virtue  to  me 
whole  and  sound  and  not  broken  into  a  number  of 
pieces.  I  have  given  you  the  pattern. 

Men .  Well  then,  Socrates,  virtue,  as  I  take  it,  is  the 
love  and  attainment  of  the  honorable ;  that  is  what  the 
poet  says,  and  I  say  too  — 

“  Virtue  is  the  desire  and  power  of  attaining  the  honorable.” 

Soc .  And  does  he  who  desires  the  honorable  also 
desire  the  good? 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  Then  are  there  some  who  desire  the  evil  and 
others  who  desire  the  good !  Do  not  all  men,  my  dear 
sir,  desire  good? 

Men.  No,  I  do  not  think  that. 

Soc.  There  are  some  who  desire  evil? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  Do  you  mean  that  they  think  the  evils  which 
they  desire  to  be  good ;  or  do  they  know  that  they  are 
evil  and  yet  desire  them? 

Men.  Both,  as  I  think. 

Soc.  And  do  you  really  imagine,  Meno,  that  a  man 
knows  evils  to  be  evils  and  desires  them  notwithstand- 
ing? 

Men.  Certainly  I  do. 

Soc.  And  desire  is  of  possession? 

Men.  Yes,  of  possession. 

Soc.  And  does  he  think  that  the  evils  will  do  good 
to  him  who  possesses  them,  or  does  he  know  that  they 
will  do  him  harm? 

Men.  There  are  some  who  think  that  the  evils  will 
do  them  good,  and  others  who  know  that  they  will  do 
them  harm. 

Soc.  And,  in  your  opinion,  do  those  who  think 


22 


MENO 


that  they  will  do  them  good  know  that  they  are 
evils  ? 

Men.  No,  I  certainly  do  not  think  that. 

Soc.  Can  anything  be  clearer  than  that  those  who 
are  ignorant  of  the  evils  do  not  desire  them,  but  they 
desire  what  they  suppose  to  be  good  when  they  are 
really  evils,  and  they  who  do  not  know  them  to  be 
evils,  and  suppose  them  to  be  good,  desire  good? 

Men.  Yes,  in  that  case. 

Soc.  Well,  and  do  those  who,  as  you  say,  desire 
evils,  and  think  that  evils  are  hurtful  to  the  possessor 
of  them,  know  that  they  will  be  hurt  by  them? 

Men.  They  must  know  that. 

Soc.  And  do  they  not  suppose  that  they  are  miser¬ 
able  in  the  degree  that  they  are  hurt? 

Men.  That  again  they  must  believe. 

Soc.  And  are  not  the  miserable  ill-fated? 

Men.  Yes,  indeed. 

Soc.  And  does  any  one  desire  to  be  miserable  and 
ill-fated? 

Men.  I  should  say  not,  Socrates. 

Soc.  But  if  there  is  no  one  who  desires  to  be  miser¬ 
able,  there  is  no  one,  Meno,  who  desires  evil;  for  what 
is  misery  but  the  desire  and  possession  of  evil? 

Men.  That  appears  to  be  the  truth,  Socrates,  and  I 
admit  that  nobody  desires  evil. 

Soc.  And  yet,  were  you  not  saying  just  now  that 
virtue  is  the  desire  and  power  of  attaining  good? 

Men.  Yes,  I  did  say  that. 

Soc.  But  granting  that,  then  the  desire  of  good  is 
common  to  all,  and  one  man  is  no  better  than  another 
in  that? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  And  if  one  man  is  not  better  than  another  in 
desiring  good,  he  must  be  better  in  the  power  of  at¬ 
taining  good? 


MENQ 


23 


Men.  Exactly. 

Soc.  Then,  according  to  your  definition,  virtue 
would  appear  to  be  the  power  of  attaining  good? 

Men.  I  entirely  approve,  Socrates,  of  the  manner 
in  which  you  view  this  matter. 

Soc.  Then  now  let  us  see  whether  this  is  true  from 
another  point  of  view;  for  I  dare  say  that  you  are 
right.  What  you  say  is,  that  virtue  is  the  power  of 
attaining  good? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc .  And  you  would  say  that  goods  are  such  as 
health  and  wealth  and  the  possession  of  gold  and  sil¬ 
ver,  and  having  office  and  honor  in  the  state  —  these 
are  what  you  would  call  goods? 

Men.  Yes,  all  these. 

Soc.  Then,  according  to  Meno,  who  is  the  heredi¬ 
tary  friend  of  the  great  king,  virtue  is  the  power  of 
getting  silver  and  gold;  and  would  you  add  piously, 
justly,  or  do  you  deem  this  of  no  consequence?  And 
is  any  mode  of  acquisition,  even  if  unjust  or  dishonest, 
equally  to  be  regarded  as  virtue? 

Men.  Not  virtue,  Socrates,  but  vice. 

Soc.  Then  justice  or  temperance  or  holiness,  or 
some  other  part  of  virtue,  as  would  appear,  must  ac¬ 
company  the  acquisition,  and  without  them  the  mere 
acquisition  of  good  will  not  be  virtue. 

Men.  Why,  how  can  there  be  virtue  without  these? 

Soc.  And  the  non-acquisition  of  gold  and  silver  in  a 
dishonest  manner  may  be  equally  virtue? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  Then  the  acquisition  of  such  goods  is  no  more 
virtue  than  the  non-acquisition  of  them,  but  whatever 
is  accompanied  by  justice  or  honesty  is  virtue,  and 
whatever  is  devoid  of  justice  is  vice? 

Men.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  that,  in  my 
judgment. 


24 


MENO 


Soc.  And  were  we  not  saying  just  now  that  justice, 
temperance,  and  the  like,  were  each  of  them  a  part  of 
virtue  ? 

Men .  Yes. 

Soc.  And  so,  Meno,  this  is  the  way  in  which  you 
mock  me. 

Men.  Why  do  you  say  that,  Socrates? 

Soc.  Why,  because  I  asked  you  to  deliver  virtue 
into  my  hands  whole  and  unbroken,  and  I  gave  you 
a  pattern  according  to  which  you  were  to  frame  your 
answer;  and  you  have  already  forgotten  this,  and  tell 
me  that  virtue  is  the  power  of  attaining  good  justly, 
or  with  justice  —  thus  acknowledging  justice  to  be  a 
part  of  virtue. 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  Then  it  follows  from  your  own  admissions, 
that  virtue  is  doing  what  you  do  with  a  part  of  virtue; 
for  justice  and  the  like  are  each  of  them  parts  of 
virtue. 

Men.  What  of  that? 

Soc.  What  of  that!  Why,  did  not  I  ask  you  to  tell 
me  the  nature  of  virtue  as  a  whole  ?  And  you  are  very 
far  from  telling  me  this;  but  declare  every  action  to 
be  virtue  which  is  done  with  a  part  of  virtue;  as  though 
you  had  already  told  me  the  whole  of  virtue,  and  as  if 
I  should  know  what  the  whole  was  when  frittered 
away  into  little  pieces.  And,  therefore,  my  dear 
Meno,  I  fear  that  I  must  begin  again  and  repeat  the 
same  question:  What  is  virtue?  for  otherwise,  I  can 
only  say,  that  every  action  done  with  a  part  of  virtue 
is  virtue;  what  else  is  the  meaning  of  saying  that 
every  action  done  with  justice  is  virtue?  Don’t  you 
think  that  the  question  requires  to  be  repeated ;  for 
can  any  one  who  does  not  know  virtue  know  a  part  of 
virtue  ? 

Men.  No;  I  do  not  say  that  he  can. 


MENO 


25 


Soc.  Do  you  remember  how,  in  the  example  of 
figure,  we  rejected  any  answer  given  in  terms  which 
were  as  yet  unexplained  or  unadmitted? 

Men .  Yes,  Socrates;  and  we  were  right  in  that. 

Soc.  Well,  my  friend,  do  as  we  did  then:  and  do  not 
suppose  that  we  can  explain  to  any  one  the  nature  of 
virtue  as  a  whole  through  some  unexplained  portion  of 
virtue,  or  anything  at  all  in  that  fashion;  for  that  only 
leads  to  a  repetition  of  the  old  question.  What  is 
virtue?  Now,  am  I  not  right? 

Men.  I  believe  that  you  are. 

Soc.  Then  begin  again,  and  answer  me,  What,  ac¬ 
cording  to  you  and  your  friend,  is  the  definition  of 
virtue  ? 

Men.  O  Socrates;  I  used  to  be  told,  before  I  knew 
you,  that  you  are  always  puzzling  yourself  and  others ; 
and  now  you  are  casting  your  spells  over  me,  and  I 
am  simply  getting  bewitched  and  enchanted,  and  am 
at  my  wits’  end.  And  if  I  may  venture  to  make  a  jest 
upon  you,  you  seem  to  me  both  in  your  appearance 
and  in  your  power  over  others  to  be  very  like  the  flat 
torpedo  fish,  who  torpifies  those  who  come  near  him 
with  the  touch,  as  you  have  now  torpified  me,  I  think. 
For  my  soul  and  my  tongue  are  really  torpid,  and  I 
do  not  know  how  to  answer  you;  and  though  I  have 
been  delivered  of  an  infinite  variety  of  speeches  about 
virtue  before  now,  and  to  many  persons  —  and  very 
good  ones  they  were,  as  I  thought  —  now  I  can  not 
even  say  what  virtue  is.  And  I  think  that  you  are 
very  wise  in  not  voyaging  and  going  away  from  home, 
for  if  you  did  in  other  places  as  you  do  in  Athens,  you 
would  be  cast  into  prison  as  a  magician. 

Soc.  You  are  a  rogue,  Meno,  and  had  all  but  caught 
me. 

Men.  What  do  you  mean,  Socrates? 

Soc.  I  can  tell  why  you  made  a  simile  about  me. 


26 


MENO 


Men.  Why.  do  you  think? 

Soc.  In  order  that  I  might  make  another  simile 
about  you.  For  I  know  that  all  pretty  young  gentle¬ 
men  like  to  have  pretty  similes  made  about  them ;  and 
well  they  may :  but  I  shall  not  return  the  compliment. 
As  to  my  being  a  torpedo,  if  the  torpedo  is  torpid  as 
well  as  the  cause  of  torpidity  in  others,  then  indeed  I 
am  a  torpedo,  but  not  otherwise;  for  I  perplex  others, 
not  because  I  am  clear,  but  because  I  am  utterly  per¬ 
plexed  myself.  And  now  I  know  not  what  virtue  is, 
and  you  seem  to  be  in  the  same  case,  although  you 
did  once  know  before  you  touched  me.  However,  I 
have  no  objection  to  join  with  you  in  the  inquiry. 

Men.  And  how  will  you  inquire,  Socrates,  into  that 
which  you  know  not?  What  will  you  put  forth  as  the 
subject  of  inquiry?  And  if  you  find  what  you  want, 
how  will  you  ever  know  that  this  is  what  you  did  not 
know  ? 

Soc.  I  know,  Meno,  what  you  mean;  but  just  see 
what  a  tiresome  dispute  you  are  introducing.  You 
argue  that  a  man  can  not  inquire  either  about  that 
which  he  knows,  or  about  that  which  he  does  not  know ; 
for  he  knows,  and  therefore  has  no  need  to  inquire 
about  that  —  nor  about  that  which  he  does  not  know; 
for  he  does  not  know  that  about  which  he  is  to  inquire. 

Men.  Well,  Socrates,  and  is  not  the  argument 
sound? 

Soc.  I  think  not. 

Men.  Why  not? 

Soc.  I  will  tell  you  why.  I  have  heard  from  certain 
wise  men  and  women  who  spoke  of  things  divine 
that  — 

Men.  What  did  they  say? 

Soc.  They  spoke  of  a  glorious  truth,  as  I  conceive. 

Men.  What  was  that?  and  who  were  they? 

Soc.  Some  of  them  were  priests  and  priestesses, 


MENO 


27 


who  have;  studied  how  they  might  be  able  to  give  a 
reason  of  their  profession:  there  have  been  poets  also, 
such  as  the  poet  Pindar  and  other  inspired  men.  And 
what  they  say  is  —  mark,  now,  and  see  whether  their 
words  are  true  —  they  say  that  the  soul  of  man  is  im¬ 
mortal,  and  at  one  time  has  an  end,  which  is  termed 
dying,  and  at  another  time  is  born  again,  but  is  never 
destroyed.  And  the  moral  is,  that  a  man  ought  to 
live  always  in  perfect  holiness.  For  in  the  ninth  year 
Persephone  sends  the  souls  of  those  from  whom  she  has 
received  the  penalty  of  ancient  crime  back  again  into 
the  light  of  this  world,  and  these  are  they  who  become 
noble  kings  and  mighty  men  and  great  in  wisdom  and 
are  called  saintly  heroes  in  after  ages.  The  soul,  then, 
as  being  immortal,  and  having  been  bom  again  many 
times,  and  having  seen  all  things  that  there  are, 
whether  in  this  world  or  in  the  world  below,  has  knowl¬ 
edge  of  them  all;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  she  should 
be  able  to  call  to  remembrance  all  that  she  ever  knew 
about  virtue,  and  about  everything;  for  as  all  nature 
is  akin,  and  the  soul  has  learned  all  things,  there  is  no 
difficulty  in  her  eliciting,  or  as  men  say  learning,  all 
out  of  a  single  recollection,  if  a  man  is  strenuous  and 
does  not  faint;  for  all  inquiry  and  all  learning  is  but 
recollection.  And  therefore  we  ought  not  to  listen  to 
this  sophistical  argument  about  the  impossibility  of 
inquiry:  that  is  a  saying  which  will  make  us  idle,  and 
is  sweet  only  to  the  sluggard;  but  the  other  saying 
will  make  us  active  and  enterprising.  In  that  con¬ 
fiding,  I  will  gladly  inquire  with  you  into  the  nature 
of  virtue. 

Men.  Yes,  Socrates;  but  what  do  you  mean  by  say¬ 
ing  that  we  do  not  learn,  and  that  what  we  call  learn¬ 
ing  is  only  a  process  of  recollection?  Can  you  teach 
me  that? 

Soc .  I  told  you,  Meno,  that  you  were  a  rogue,  and 


28 


MENO 


now  you  ask  whether  I  can  teach  you,  when  I  am 
saying  that  there  is  no  teaching,  but  only  recollection ; 
and  thus  you  imagine  that  you  will  involve  me  in  a 
contradiction. 

Men.  Indeed,  Socrates,  I  protest  that  I  had  no  such 
intention.  I  only  asked  the  question  from  habit ;  but 
if  you  can  prove  to  me  that  what  you  say  is  true,  I 
wish  that  you  would. 

Soc .  That  is  no  easy  matter,  but  I  will  try  to  please 
you  to  the  utmost  of  my  power.  Suppose  that  you 
call  one  of  your  numerous  attendants,  that  I  may 
demonstrate  on  him. 

Men.  Certainly.  Come  hither,  boy. 

Soc.  He  is  Greek,  and  speaks  Greek,  does  he  not? 

Men.  Yes;  he  was  born  in  the  house. 

Soc.  Attend  now  to  the  questions  which  I  ask  him, 
and  observe  whether  he  learns  of  me  or  only  remem¬ 
bers. 

Men.  I  will. 

Soc.  Tell  me,  boy,  do  you  know  that  a  figure  like 
this  is  a  square? 

Boy.  I  do. 

Soc.  And  you  know  that  a  square  figure  has  these 
four  lines  equal? 

Boy.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  these  lines  which  I  have  drawn  through 
the  middle  of  the  square  are  also  equal? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  A  square  may  be  of  any  size? 

Boy.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  if  one  side  of  the  figure  be  of  two  feet, 
and  the  other  side  be  of  two  feet,  how  much  will  the 
whole  be?  Let  me  explain:  if  in  one  direction  the 
space  was  of  two  feet,  and  in  the  other  direction  of 
one  foot,  the  whole  would  be  of  two  feet  taken  once? 

Boy.  Yes. 


MENO 


29 


Soc.  But  since  this  side  is  also  of  two  feet,  there  are 
twice  two  feet? 

Boy.  There  are. 

Soc.  Then  the  square  is  of  twice  two  feet? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  how  many  are  twice  two  feet?  count  and 
tell  me. 

Boy.  Four,  Socrates. 

Soc.  And  might  there  not  be  another  square  twice 
as  large  as  this,  and  having  like  this  the  lines  equal? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  of  how  many  feet  will  that  be? 

Boy.  Of  eight  feet. 

Soc.  And  now  try  and  tell  me  the  length  of  the  line 
which  forms  the  side  of  that  double  square:  this  is  two 
feet  —  what  will  that  be? 

Boy.  Clearly,  Socrates,  that  will  be  double. 

Soc.  Do  you  observe,  Meno,  that  I  am  not  teaching 
the  boy  anything,  but  only  asking  him  questions ;  and 
now  he  fancies  that  he  knows  how  long  a  line  is  neces¬ 
sary  in  order  to  produce  a  figure  of  eight  square  feet; 
does  he  not? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  does  he  really  know? 

Men.  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  He  only  guesses  that  [because  the  square  is 
double],  the  line  is  double. 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  Observe  him  while  he  recalls  the  steps  in  reg¬ 
ular  order.  (To  the  Boy.)  Tell  me,  boy,  do  you 
assert  that  a  double  space  comes  from  a  double  line? 
Remember  that  I  am  not  speaking  of  an  oblong,  but 
of  a  square,  and  of  a  square  twice  the  size  of  this  one  — 
that  is  to  say  of  eight  feet;  and  I  want  to  know 
whether  you  still  say  that  a  double  square  comes  from 
a  double  line? 


30 


MENO 


Boy .  Yes. 

Soc .  But  does  not  this  line  become  doubled  if  we 
add  another  such  line  here? 

Boy .  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  four  such  lines  will  make  a  space  contain¬ 
ing  eight  feet? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  Let  us  describe  such  a  figure :  is  not  that  what 
you  would  say  is  the  figure  of  eight  feet? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  are  there  not  these  four  divisions  in  the 
figure,  each  of  which  is  equal  to  the  figure  of  four 
feet? 

Boy.  True. 

Soc.  And  is  not  that  four  times 
four? 

Boy.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  four  times  is  not 
double. 

Boy.  No,  indeed. 

Soc.  But  how  much? 

Boy.  Four  times  as  much. 

Soc.  Therefore  the  double  line,  boy,  has  formed  a 
space,  not  twice,  but  four  times  as  much. 

Boy.  True. 

Soc.  And  four  times  four  are  sixteen  —  are  they 
not? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  What  line  would  give  you  a  space  of  eight 
feet,  as  this  gives  one  of  sixteen  feet;  —  do  you  see? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  the  space  of  four  feet  is  made  from  this 
half  line? 

Boy .  Yes. 

Soc.  Good;  and  is  not  a  space  of  eight  feet  twice 
the  size  of  this,  and  half  the  size  of  the  other? 


MENO 


31 


Boy .  Certainly. 

Soc.  Such  a  space,  then,  will  be  made  out  of  a  line 
greater  than  this  one,  and  less  than  that  one? 

Boy .  Yes;  that  is  what  I  think. 

Soc.  Very  good;  I  like  to  hear  you  say  what  you 
think.  And  now  tell  me,  is  not  this  a  line  of  two  feet 
and  that  of  four? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  Then  the  line  which  forms  the  side  of  eight 
feet  ought  to  be  more  than  this  line  of  two  feet,  and 
less  than  the  other  of  four  feet? 

Boy.  It  ought. 

Soc.  Try  and  see  if  you  can  tell  me  how  much  it 
will  be. 

Boy.  Three  feet. 

Soc.  Then  if  we  add  a  half  to  this  line  of  two, 
that  will  be  the  line  of  three.  Here  are  two  and  there 
is  one;  and  on  the  other  side,  here  are  two  also  and 
there  is  one:  and  that  makes  the  figure  of  which  you 
speak? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  But  if  there  are  three  feet  this  way  and  three 
feet  that  way,  the  whole  space  will  be  three  times 
three  feet? 

Boy.  That  is  evident. 

Soc.  And  how  much  are  three  times  three  feet? 

Boy.  Nine. 

Soc.  And  how  much  is  the  double  of  four? 

Boy.  Eight. 

Soc.  Then  the  figure  of  eight  is  not  made  out  of  a 
line  of  three? 

Boy.  No. 

Soc.  But  from  what  line?  —  tell  me  exactly;  and 
if  you  would  rather  not  reckon,  try  and  show  me  the 
line. 

Boy.  Indeed,  Socrates,  I  do  not  know. 


32 


MENO 


Soc.  Do  you  see,  Meno,  what  advances  he  has  made 
in  his  power  of  recollection?  He  did  not  know  at 
first,  and  he  does  not  know  now,  what  is  the  side  of  a 
figure  of  eight  feet :  but  then  he  thought  that  he  knew, 
and  answered  confidently  as  if  he  knew,  and  had  no 
difficulty;  but  now  he  has  a  difficulty,  and  neither 
knows  nor  fancies  that  he  knows. 

Men .  True. 

Soc.  Is  he  not  better  off  in  knowing  his  ignorance? 

Men.  I  think  that  he  is. 

Soc.  If  we  have  made  him  doubt,  and  given  him  the 
“  torpedo’s  shock,”  have  we  done  him  any  harm? 

Men.  I  think  not. 

Soc.  We  have  certainly  done  something  that  may 
assist  him  in  finding  out  the  truth  of  the  matter ;  and 
now  he  will  wish  to  remedy  his  ignorance,  but  then  he 
would  have  been  ready  to  tell  all  the  world  that  the 
double  space  should  have  a  double  side. 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  But  do  you  suppose  that  he  would  ever  have 
inquired  or  learned  what  he  fancied  that  he  knew  and 
did  not  know,  until  he  had  fallen  into  perplexity  under 
the  idea  that  he  did  not  know,  and  had  desired  to 
know? 

Men.  I  think  not,  Socrates. 

Soc.  Then  he  was  the  better  for  the  torpedo’s  touch? 

Men.  I  think  that  he  was. 

Soc.  Mark  now  the  farther  development.  I  shall 
only  ask  him,  and  not  teach  him,  and  he  shall  share 
the  inquiry  with  me :  and  do  you  watch  and  see  if  you 
find  me  telling  or  explaining  anything  to  him,  instead 
of  eliciting  his  opinion.  Tell  me,  boy,  is  not  this  a 
square  of  four  feet  which  I  have  drawn? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  now  I  add  another  square  equal  to  the 
former  one? 


MENO 


33 


Boy .  Yes. 

Soc.  And  a  third,  which  is  equal  to  either  of 
them? 

Boy .  Yes. 

Soc .  Suppose  that  we  fill  up  the  vacant  corner. 
Boy.  Very  good. 

Soc.  Here,  then,  there  are  four  equal  spaces? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  how  many  times  is  this  space  larger  than 
this? 

Boy.  Four  times. 

Soc.  But  it  ought  to  have  been  twice  only,  as  you 
will  remember. 

Boy.  True. 

Soc.  And  does  not  this  line,  reaching  from  corner 
to  corner,  bisect  each  of  these  spaces? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  are  there  not  here  four  equal  lines  which 
contain  this  space? 

Boy.  There  are. 

Soc.  Look  and  see  how  much  this  space  is. 

Boy.  I  do  not  understand. 

Soc.  Has  not  each  interior  line  cut  off  half  of  the 
four  spaces? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  how  many  such  spaces  are  there  in  this 
division? 

Boy.  Four. 

Soc.  And  how  many  in  this? 

Boy.  Two. 

Soc.  And  four  is  how  many  times  two? 

Boy.  Twice. 

Soc.  And  this  space  is  of  how  many  feet? 

Boy.  Of  eight  feet. 

Soc.  And  from  what  line  do  you  get  this  figure? 
Boy.  From  this. 


34 


MENO 


Soc.  That  is,  from  the  line  which  extends  from 
corner  to  corner? 

Boy.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  that  is  the  line  which  the  learned  call  the 
diagonal.  And  if  this  is  the  proper  name,  then  you, 
Meno’s  slave,  are  prepared  to  affirm  that  the  double 
space  is  the  square  of  the  diagonal? 

Boy.  Certainly,  Socrates. 

Soc.  What  do  you  say  of  him,  Meno?  Were  not 
all  these  answers  given  out  of  his  own  head? 

Men.  Yes,  they  were  all  his  own. 

Soc.  And  yet,  as  we  were  just  now  saying,  he  did 
not  know? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  And  yet  he  had  those  notions  in  him? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  Then  he  who  does  not  know  still  has  true 
notions  of  that  which  he  does  not  know  ? 

Men.  He  has. 

Soc.  And  at  present  these  notions  are  just  waken¬ 
ing  up  in  him,  as  in  a  dream;  but  if  he  were  frequently 
asked  the  same  questions,  in  different  forms,  he  would 
know  as  well  as  any  one  at  last? 

Men.  I  dare  say. 

Soc.  Without  any  one  teaching  him  he  will  recover 
his  knowledge  for  himself,  if  he  is  only  asked  ques¬ 
tions? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  this  spontaneous  recovery  in  him  is  recol¬ 
lection? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  And  this  knowledge  which  he  now  has  must 
he  not  either  have  acquired  or  always  possessed  ? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  But  if  he  always  possessed  this  knowledge  he 
would  always  have  known ;  or  if  he  has  acquired  the 


MENO 


35 


knowledge,  he  could  not  have  acquired  it  in  this  life, 
unless  he  has  been  taught  geometry;  for  he  may  be 
made  to  do  the  same  with  all  geometry  and  every 
other  branch  of  knowledge.  Now,  has  any  one  ever 
taught  him?  You  must  know  that,  if,  as  you  say,  he 
was  born  and  bred  in  your  house. 

Men ,  And  I  am  certain  that  no  one  ever  did  teach 
him. 

Soc ,  And  yet  has  he  not  the  knowledge? 

Men,  That,  Socrates,  is  most  certain. 

Soc,  But  if  he  did  not  acquire  this  knowledge  in 
this  life,  then  clearly  he  must  have  had  and  learned 
it  at  some  other  time? 

Men,  That  is  evident. 

Soc,  And  that  must  have  been  the  time  when  he 
was  not  a  man? 

Men,  Yes. 

Soc,  And  if  there  have  been  always  true  thoughts 
in  him,  both  at  the  time  when  he  was  and  was  not  a 
man,  which  only  need  to  be  awakened  into  knowledge 
by  putting  questions  to  him,  his  soul  must  have  always 
possessed  this  knowledge,  for  he  always  either  was  or 
was  not  a  man? 

Men,  That  is  clear. 

Soc,  And  if  the  truth  of  all  things  always  existed 
in  the  soul,  then  the  soul  is  immortal.  Wherefore  be 
of  good  cheer,  and  try  to  recollect  what  you  do  not 
know,  or  rather  do  not  remember. 

Men,  I  feel,  somehow,  that  I  like  what  you  are 
saying. 

Soc,  And  I,  Meno,  like  what  I  am  saying.  Some 
things  I  have  said  of  which  I  am  not  altogether  con¬ 
fident.  But  that  we  shall  be  better  and  braver  and  less 
helpless  if  we  think  that  we  ought  to  inquire,  than  we 
should  have  been  if  we  indulged  in  the  idle  fancy 
that  there  was  no  knowing  and  no  use  in  searching 


36 


MENO 


after  what  we  know  not ;  —  that  is  a  theme  upon  which 
I  am  ready  to  fight,  in  word  and  deed,  to  the  utmost 
of  my  power. 

Men .  That  again,  Socrates,  appears  to  me  to  be 
well  said. 

Soc.  Then,  as  we  are  agreed  that  a  man  should 
inquire  about  that  which  he  does  not  know,  shall  you 
and  I  make  an  effort  to  inquire  together  into  the  na¬ 
ture  of  virtue? 

Men.  By  all  means,  Socrates.  And  yet  I  would 
rather  return  to  my  original  question,  Whether  vir¬ 
tue  comes  by  instruction,  or  by  nature,  or  is  gained  in 
some  other  way? 

Soc.  Had  I  the  command  of  you  as  well  as  of  my¬ 
self,  Meno,  I  would  not  have  inquired  whether  virtue 
is  given  by  instruction  or  not,  until  we  had  first  ascer¬ 
tained  “  what  virtue  is.”  But  as  you  never  think  of 
controlling  yourself,  but  only  of  controlling  him  who 
is  your  slave,  and  this  is  your  notion  of  freedom,  I 
must  yield  to  you,  for  I  can  not  help.  And  therefore 
I  have  now  to  inquire  into  the  qualities  of  that  of 
which  I  do  not  at  present  know  the  nature.  At  any 
rate,  will  you  condescend  a  little,  and  allow  the  ques¬ 
tion  “  Whether  virtue  is  given  by  instruction,  or  in 
any  other  way,”  to  be  argued  upon  hypothesis?  As 
the  geometrician,  when  he  is  asked  whether  a  certain 
triangle  is  capable  of  being  described  in  a  certain 
circle,  will  reply:  “  I  can  not  tell  you  as  yet;  but  I  will 
offer  a  hypothesis  which  may  assist  us  in  forming  a 
conclusion:  If  the  space  be  such  that  when  you  have 
drawn  along  the  line  given  by  it  another  figure,  the 
original  figure  is  reduced  by  a  space  equal  to  that 
which  is  added,1  then  one  consequence  follows,  and  if 
this  is  impossible  then  some  other;  and  therefore  I 
wish  to  assume  a  hypothesis  before  I  tell  you  whether 

1  Or,  in  simpler  phrase,  “  If  so  much  be  taken  from  the  triangle.” 


MENO 


37 


this  triangle  is  capable  of  being  included  in  the  cir¬ 
cle:” —  that  is  a  geometrical  hypothesis.  And  we 
too,  as  we  know  not  the  nature  and  qualities  of  virtue, 
must  ask,  whether  virtue  is  or  is  not  taught,  under  a 
hypothesis:  as  thus,  if  virtue  is  of  such  a  class  of 
mental  goods,  will  it  be  taught  or  not?  Let  the  first 
hypothesis  be  that  virtue  is  or  is  not  knowledge,  —  in 
that  case  will  it  be  taught  or  not?  or,  as  we  were  just 
now  saying,  “  remembered?  ”  For  there  is  no  use  in 
disputing  about  the  name.  But  is  virtue  taught  or 
not  ?  or  rather,  does  not  every  one  see  that  knowledge 
alone  is  taught? 

Men .  I  agree. 

Soc.  Then  if  virtue  is  knowledge,  virtue  will  be 
taught? 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  Then  now  we  have  made  a  quick  end  of  this 
question:  if  virtue  is  of  such  a  nature,  it  will  be 
taught  ;  and  if  not,  not? 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  the  next  question  is,  whether  virtue  is 
knowledge  or  of  another  species? 

Men.  Yes,  that  appears  to  be  the  question  which 
comes  next  in  order. 

Soc.  Do  we  not  say  that  virtue  is  a  good?  This  is  a 
hypothesis  which  is  not  set  aside. 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  Now,  if  there  be  any  sort  of  good  which  is 
parted  from  knowledge,  virtue  may  be  that  good;  but 
if  knowledge  embraces  all  good,  then  we  shall  be  right 
in  thinking  that  knowledge  is  some  sort  of  good? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  And  virtue  makes  us  good? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  if  we  are  good,  then  we  are  profitable; 
for  all  good  things  are  profitable? 


38 


MENO 


Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  Then  virtue  is  profitable? 

Men.  That  is  the  only  inference. 

Soc.  Then  now  let  us  see  what  are  the  things  that 
severally  profit  us.  Health  and  strength,  and  beauty 
and  wealth  —  these,  as  we  say,  are  the  sort  of  things 
which  profit  us? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  And  yet  these  things  may  also  sometimes  do 
us  harm:  would  you  not  admit  that? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  what  is  the  guiding  principle  which 
makes  them  profitable  or  the  reverse?  Are  they  not 
profitable  when  they  are  rightly  used,  and  hurtful 
when  they  are  not  rightly  used? 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  Next,  let  us  consider  the  goods  of  the  soul: 
these  are  temperance,  justice,  courage,  quickness  of 
apprehension,  memory,  magnificence,  and  the  like? 

Men.  Surely. 

Soc.  And  such  of  these  as  are  not  knowledge,  but 
of  another  sort,  are  sometimes  profitable  and  some¬ 
times  hurtful;  as,  for  example,  courage,  which  has  no 
prudence,  but  is  only  a  sort  of  confidence?  When  a 
man  has  no  sense  he  is  harmed  by  courage,  but  when 
he  has  sense  he  is  profited? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of  temperance  and 
quickness  of  apprehension ;  whatever  things  are 
learned  or  done  with  sense  are  profitable,  but  when 
done  without  sense  they  are  hurtful? 

Men.  Very  true. 

Soc.  And  in  general,  all  that  the  soul  attempts  or 
endures,  when  under  the  guidance  of  wisdom,  ends  in 
happiness;  but  when  she  is  under  the  guidance  of 
folly,  in  the  opposite? 


MENO 


39 


Men.  That  appears  to  be  true. 

Soc.  If  then  virtue  is  a  good  of  the  soul,  and  is  to 
be  profitable,  it  must  be  wisdom  or  prudence,  since 
some  of  the  goods  of  the  soul  are  either  profitable  or 
hurtful  by  the  addition  of  wisdom  or  of  folly;  and 
therefore  if  virtue  is  profitable,  virtue  must  be  a  sort 
of  wisdom  or  prudence  ? 

Men.  That  is  my  view. 

Soc.  And  the  other  goods,  such  as  wealth  and  the 
like,  of  which  we  were  just  now  saying  that  they  are 
sometimes  good  and  sometimes  evil,  are  they  not  also 
made  profitable  or  hurtful,  accordingly  as  the  soul 
guides  and  uses  them  rightly  or  wrongly  —  as  in  the 
soul  generally,  wisdom  is  the  useful  and  folly  the 
hurtful  guide? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  And  the  wise  soul  guides  them  rightly,  and 
the  foolish  soul  wrongly? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  is  not  this  universally  true  of  human 
nature?  All  other  things  hang  upon  the  soul,  and 
the  things  of  the  soul  hang  upon  wisdom,  if  they  are 
to  be  good ;  and  according  to  this  view  of  the  question 
that  which  profits  is  wisdom  —  and  virtue,  as  we  say, 
is  profitable? 

Men .  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  thus  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion  that 
virtue  is  either  wholly  or  partly  wisdom? 

Men.  I  think  that  what  you  are  saying,  Socrates, 
is  very  true. 

Soc.  But  if  this  is  true,  then  the  good  are  not  by 
nature  good? 

Men.  I  think  not. 

Soc.  If  they  had  been,  there  would  assuredly  have 
been  discerners  of  characters  among  us  who  would 
have  known  our  future  great  men;  and  we  should 


40 


MENO 


have  taken  them  on  their  showing,  and  when  we  had 
got  them,  we  should  have  kept  them  in  the  citadel  out 
of  the  way  of  harm,  and  set  a  stamp  upon  them  more 
than  upon  gold,  in  order  that  no  one  might  tamper 
with  them;  and  then  when  they  grew  up  they  would 
have  been  useful  to  the  state? 

Men.  Yes,  Socrates,  that  would  have  been  the  way. 

Soc.  But  if  the  good  are  not  by  nature  good,  are 
they  made  good  by  instruction? 

Men.  There  is  no  other  alternative,  Socrates.  On 
the  supposition  that  virtue  is  knowledge,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  virtue  is  taught. 

Soc.  Yes,  indeed;  but  what  if  the  supposition  is 
erroneous  ? 

Men.  I  certainly  thought  just  now  that  we  were 
right. 

Soc.  Yes,  Meno;  but  a  principle  which  has  any 
soundness  should  stand  firm  not  only  now  and  then, 
but  always  and  forever. 

Men.  Well;  and  why  are  you  so  slow  of  heart  to 
believe  that  knowledge  is  virtue? 

Soc.  I  will  try  and  tell  you  why,  Meno.  I  do  not 
retract  the  assertion  that  if  virtue  is  knowledge  it  may 
be  taught ;  but  I  fear  that  I  have  some  reason  in  doubt¬ 
ing  whether  virtue  is  knowledge:  for  consider  now 
and  say  whether  virtue,  or  anything  that  is  taught, 
must  not  have  teachers  and  disciples? 

Men.  Surely. 

Soc.  And  again,  may  not  that  art  of  which  there 
are  neither  teachers  nor  disciples  be  assumed  to  be 
incapable  of  being  taught? 

Men.  True;  but  do  you  think  that  there  are  no 

teachers  of  virtue? 

Soc.  I  have  certainly  often  inquired  whether  there 
were  any,  and  taken  great  pains  to  find  them,  and 
have  never  succeeded;  and  many  have  assisted  me  in 


MENO 


41 


the  search,  and  they  were  the  persons  whom  I  thought 
the  most  likely  to  know.  Here  is  Anytus,  who  is  sit¬ 
ting  by  us  at  the  very  moment  when  he  is  wanted ;  he 
is  the  person  whom  we  should  ask.  In  the  first  place, 
he  is  the  son  of  a  wealthy  and  wise  father,  Anthemion, 
who  acquired  his  wealth,  not  by  accident  or  gift,  like 
Ismenias  the  Theban  ( who  has  recently  made  himself 
as  rich  as  a  Polycrates),  but  by  his  own  skill  and  in¬ 
dustry,  and  he  is  a  well-conditioned,  modest  man,  not 
insolent,  or  overbearing,  or  annoying;  moreover,  he 
has  given  his  son  a  good  education,  as  the  Athenian 
people  certainly  appear  to  think,  for  they  choose  him 
to  fill  the  highest  offices.  And  these  are  the  sort  of 
men  from  whom  you  are  likely  to  learn  whether  there 
are  any  teachers  of  virtue,  and  who  they  are.  Please, 
Anytus,  to  help  me  and  your  friend  Meno  in  answer¬ 
ing  our  question,  Who  are  the  teachers?  Consider 
the  matter  thus:  If  we  wanted  Meno  to  be  a  good 
physician,  to  whom  should  we  send  him?  Should  we 
not  send  him  to  the  physicians? 

Any.  Certainly. 

Soc.  Or  if  we  wanted  him  to  be  a  good  cobbler, 
should  we  not  send  him  to  the  cobblers? 

Any.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  so  forth? 

Any.  Yes. 

Soc.  Let  me  trouble  you  with  one  more  question. 
When  we  say  that  we  should  be  right  in  sending  him 
to  the  physicians  if  we  wanted  him  to  be  a  physician, 
do  we  mean  that  we  should  be  right  in  sending  him 
to  those  who  profess  the  art,  rather  than  to  those  who 
don’t,  and  to  those  who  demand  payment  for  teach¬ 
ing  the  art,  and  profess  to  teach  it  to  any  one  who  will 
come  and  learn?  If  we  were  right  in  sending  him, 
would  that  be  the  reason? 

Any.  Yes. 


42 


MENO 


Soc.  And  might  not  the  same  be  said  of  flute-play¬ 
ing,  and  of  the  other  arts?  No  man  who  wanted  to 
make  a  man  a  flute-player  would  refuse  to  send  him 
to  those  who  profess  to  teach  the  art  for  money,  and 
trouble  other  persons  to  give  him  instruction  who  do 
not  profess  to  teach,  and  never  had  a  disciple  in  that 
branch  of  knowledge  which  we  want  him  to  acquire  — 
that  would  be  the  height  of  folly. 

Any .  Yes,  by  Zeus,  and  of  ignorance  too. 

Soc.  Very  good.  And  now  you  are  in  a  position  to 
advise  with  me  about  my  friend  Meno.  He  has  been 
saying  to  me,  Anytus,  that  he  desires  to  attain  that 
wisdom  and  virtue,  by  which  men  order  the  state  or 
the  house,  and  honor  their  parents,  and  know  when 
to  receive  and  when  to  send  away  citizens  and 
strangers,  as  a  good  man  should.  Now,  to  whom 
ought  we  to  send  him  in  order  that  he  may  learn  this 
virtue?  Does  not  the  previous  argument  imply 
clearly  that  he  ought  to  go  to  those  who  profess  and 
avouch  that  they  are  the  common  teachers  of  Hellas, 
and  are  ready  to  impart  instruction  to  any  one  who 
likes,  at  a  fixed  price? 

Any.  Whom  do  you  mean,  Socrates? 

Soc.  You  surely  know,  do  you  not,  Anytus,  that 
these  are  the  people  whom  mankind  describe  as 
Sophists?  I 

Any.  By  Heracles,  Socrates,  forbear!  I  only  hope 
that  no  friend  or  kinsman  or  acquaintance  of  mine, 
whether  citizen  or  stranger,  will  ever  be  so  mad  as  to 
allow  himself  to  be  corrupted  by  them ;  for  they  are  a 
manifest  pest  and  corrupting  influence  of  those  who 
have  to  do  with  them. 

Soc.  What  do  you  mean,  Anytus?  Of  all  the 
people  who  profess  that  they  know  how  to  do  men 
good,  are  these  the  only  ones  who  not  only  do  them 
no  good,  but  positively  corrupt  those  who  are  en- 


MENO 


43 


trusted  to  them?  That  is  very  singular.  And  more¬ 
over,  in  return  they  publicly  demand  money.  Indeed, 
I  can  not  believe  this;  for  I  know  of  a  single  man, 
Protagoras,  who  made  more  out  of  his  craft  than  the 
illustrious  Pheidias,  or  any  ten  other  statuaries.  How 
could  that  be  ?  A  mender  of  old  shoes,  or  patcher  up 
of  clothes,  who  made  the  shoes  or  clothes  worse  than 
he  received  them,  could  not  have  remained  thirty  days 
undetected,  and  would  very  soon  have  starved; 
whereas,  during  more  than  forty  years,  Protagoras 
was  corrupting  his  disciples,  and  sending  them  from 
him  worse  than  he  received  them,  and  yet  all  Hellas 
failed  in  detecting  him.  For,  if  I  am  not  mistaken, 
he  was  about  seventy  years  old  at  his  death,  forty  of 
which  were  spent  in  the  practice  of  his  profession ; 
and  during  all  that  time  he  had  a  good  reputation, 
which  to  this  day  he  retains:  and  not  only  Protagoras, 
but  many  others  have  a  good  reputation;  some  who 
lived  before  him,  and  others  who  are  still  living.  Nov/, 
when  you  say  that  they  deceived  and  corrupted  the 
youth,  are  they  to  be  supposed  to  have  corrupted  them 
intentionally  or  unintentionally?  Can  those  who  were 
deemed  by  many  to  be  the  wisest  men  of  Hellas  have 
been  out  of  their  minds? 

Any.  Out  of  their  minds !  No,  Socrates;  the  young 
men  who  gave  their  money  to  them  were  out  of  their 
minds,  and  their  relations  and  guardians  who  en¬ 
trusted  them  to  their  care  were  still  more  out  of  their 
minds,  and  most  of  all  the  cities  who  allowed  them  to 
come  in  and  did  not  drive  them  out,  citizen  or  stranger 
alike. 

Soc.  Has  any  of  the  Sophists  wronged  you,  Any- 
tus?  What  makes  you  so  angry  with  them? 

Any.  No,  indeed,  neither  I  nor  any  of  my  belong¬ 
ings  has  ever  had,  nor  would  I  suffer  them  to  have, 
anything  to  do  with  them. 


44 


MENO 


Soc.  Then  you  are  entirely  unacquainted  with 
them? 

Any.  And  I  have  no  wish  to  be  acquainted. 

Soc.  Then,  my  dear  friend,  how  can  you  know 
whether  a  thing  is  good  or  bad  of  which  you  are  wholly 
ignorant? 

Any.  Quite  well;  I  am  quite  sure  that  I  know 
what  manner  of  men  these  are,  whether  I  know  them 
or  not. 

Soc.  You  must  be  a  diviner,  Anytus,  for  1  really 
can  not  make  out,  judging  from  your  own  words,  how, 
if  you  are  not  acquainted  with  them,  you  know  about 
them.  But  I  am  not  inquiring  of  you  who  are  the 
teachers  who  will  corrupt  Meno  (let  them  be,  if  you 
please,  the  Sophists)  ;  I  only  ask  you  to  tell  him  who 
there  is  in  this  great  city  who  will  teach  him  how  to 
become  eminent  in  the  virtues  which  I  was  just  now 
describing.  He  is  the  friend  of  your  family,  and  you 

will  oblige  him. 

Any.  Why  don’t  you  tell  him? 

Soc.  I  have  told  him  whom  I  supposed  to  be  the 
teachers  of  these  things ;  but  I  learn  from  you  that  I 
am  utterly  at  fault,  and  I  dare  say  that  you  are  right. 
And  now  I  wish  that  you,  on  your  part,  would  tell 
me  to  whom  among  the  Athenians  he  should  go. 

Whom  would  you  name? 

Any.  Why  single  out  individuals?  Any  Athenian 

gentleman,  taken  at  random,  if  he  will  mind  him,  will 
do  him  far  more  good  than  the  Sophists. 

Soc.  And  did  those  gentlemen  grow  of  themselves ; 
and  without  having  been  taught  by  any  one,  were 
they  nevertheless  able  to  teach  others  that  which  they 

never  learned  themselves? 

Any.  I  imagine  that  they  learned  of  the  previous 
generation  of  gentlemen.  Have  there  not  been  many 
good  men  in  this  city? 


MENO 


45 


Soc.  Yes,  certainly,  Anytus;  and  many  good 
statesmen  also  there  always  have  been,  and  there  are 
still,  in  the  city  of  Athens.  But  the  question  is 
whether  they  were  also  good  teachers  of  their  own 
virtue ;  not  whether  there  are,  or  have  been,  good 
men,  but  whether  virtue  can  be  taught,  is  the  question 
which  we  have  been  discussing.  Now,  do  we  mean  to 
say  that  the  good  men  of  our  own  and  of  other  times 
knew  how  to  impart. to  others  that  virtue  which  they 
had  themselves  ;  or  is  this  virtue  incapable  of  being 
communicated  or  imparted  by  one  man  to  another? 
That  is  the  question  which  I  and  Meno  have  been 
arguing.  Look  at  the  matter  in  your  own  way. 

Would  you  not  admit  that  Themistocles  was  a  good 
man? 

Any.  Certainly;  no  man  better. 

Soc.  And  must  not  he  then  have  been  a  good 

teacher,  if  any  man  ever  was  a  good  teacher,  of  his 
own  virtue? 

Any.  Yes,  certainly,  —  if  he  wanted  to  be  that. 

Soc.  But  would  he  not  have  wanted?  He  would, 
at  any  rate,  have  desired  to  make  his  own  son  a  good 
man  and  a  gentleman;  he  could  not  have  been  jealous 
of  him,  or  have  intentionally  abstained  from  impart¬ 
ing  to  him  his  own  virtue.  Did  you  never  hear  that 
he  made  Cleophantus,  who  was  his  son,  a  famous 
horseman?  — he  would  stand  upright  on  horseback 
and  hurl  a  javelin;  and  many  other  marvellous  things 
he  could  do  which  his  father  had  him  taught;  and  in 
anything  which  the  skill  of  a  master  could  teach  him 
he  was  well  trained.  Have  you  not  heard  from  our 
elders  of  this? 

Any.  I  have. 

Soc.  Then  no  one  could  say  that  his  son  showed 
any  want  of  capacity? 

Any.  Possibly  not. 


46 


MENO 


Soc.  But  did  any  one,  old  or  young,  ever  say  in 
your  hearing  that  Cleophantus,  the  son  of  Themis- 
tocles,  was  a  wise  or  good  man,  as  his  father  was? 

Any.  I  have  certainly  never  heard  that. 

Soc.  And  if  virtue  could  have  been  taught,  would 
he  have  sought  to  train  him  in  these  sort  of  accom¬ 
plishments,  and  allowed  him  who,  as  you  must  re¬ 
member,  was  his  own  son,  to  be  no  better  than  his 
neighbors  in  those  qualities  in  which  he  himself  ex¬ 
celled  ? 

Any.  Indeed,  indeed,  I  think  not. 

Soc.  Here  then  is  a  teacher  of  virtue  whom  you 
admit  to  be  among  the  best  men  of  the  past.  Let  us 
take  another,  —  Aristides,  the  son  of  Lysimachus : 
would  you  not  acknowledge  that  he  was  a  good 
man? 

Any.  To  be  sure,  I  should. 

Soc.  And  did  not  he  train  his  son  Lysimachus  bet¬ 
ter  than  any  other  Athenian  in  all  that  could  be  done 
for  him  by  the  help  of  masters?  But  what  has  been 
the  result?  Is  he  a  bit  better  than  any  other  mortal? 
He  is  an  acquaintance  of  yours,  and  you  see  what  he 
is  like.  There  is  Pericles,  again,  magnificent  in  his 
wisdom;  and  he,  as  you  know,  had  two  sons,  Paralus 
and  Xanthippus. 

Any.  I  know. 

Soc.  And  you  know,  also,  that  he  taught  them  to 
be  unrivalled  horsemen,  and  had  them  trained  in  music 
and  gymnastics  and  all  sorts  of  arts  —  in  these  re¬ 
spects  they  were  on  a  level  with  the  best  —  and  had  he 
no  wish  to  make  good  men  of  them?  Nay,  he  must 
have  wished  that.  But  I  suspect  that  virtue  could  not 
be  taught.  And  that  you  may  not  suppose  that  the 
incompetent  teachers  are  the  meaner  sort  of  Athenians 
and  few  in  number,  remember  again  that  Thucydides 
had  two  sons,  Melesias  and  Stephanus,  whom  he 


MENO 


47 


trained  chiefly  in  wrestling;  and  they  too  had  an 
excellent  education,  and  were  the  best  wrestlers  in 
Athens :  one  of  them  he  committed  to  the  care  of 
Xanthias,  and  the  other  of  Eudorus,  who  had  the 
reputation  of  being  the  most  celebrated  wrestlers  of 
that  day.  Do  you  remember  them? 

Any.  I  have  heard  of  them. 

Soc.  Now,  can  there  be  a  doubt  that  Thucydides, 
who  had  his  children  taught  wrestling,  at  a  consider¬ 
able  expense,  would  have  taught  them  to  be  good  men, 
which  would  have  cost  him  nothing,  if  virtue  could 
have  been  taught?  Will  you  reply  that  he  was  a  mean 
man,  and  had  not  many  friends  among  the  Athenians 
and  allies?  Nay,  but  he  was  of  a  great  family,  and 
a  man  of  influence  at  Athens  and  in  all  Hellas,  and,  if 
virtue  could  have  been  taught,  he  would  have  found 
out  some  one  either  in  or  out  of  Hellas  who  would 
have  made  good  men  of  his  sons,  if  he  could  not  him¬ 
self  spare  the  time  from  cares  of  state.  Again  I  sus¬ 
pect,  friend  Anytus,  that  virtue  is  not  a  thing  which 
can  be  taught? 

Any.  Socrates,  I  think  that  you  are  too  ready  to 
speak  evil  of  men :  and,  if  you  will  take  my  advice,  I 
would  recommend  you  to  be  careful.  Perhaps  there 
is  no  city  in  which  it  is  not  easier  to  do  men  harm  than 
to  do  them  good,  and  this  is  certainly  the  case  at 
Athens,  as  I  believe  that  you  know. 

Soc.  O  Meno,  I  think  that  Anytus  is  in  a  rage. 
And  he  may  well  be  in  a  rage,  for  he  thinks,  in  the 
first  place,  that  I  am  defaming  these  gentlemen;  and 
then,  in  the  second  place,  he  thinks  that  he  is  one  of 
them.  But  when  he  understands,  which  he  does  not 
at  present,  what  is  the  meaning  of  defamation,  he  will 
forgive  me.  Meanwhile  I  will  return  to  you,  Meno ; 

for  I  suppose  that  there  are  gentlemen  in  your  region 
too? 


48 


MENO 


Men.  Certainly  there  are. 

Soc.  And  are  they  willing  to  teach  the  young?  and 
do  they  profess  to  be  teachers?  and  do  they  agree  that 
virtue  is  taught? 

Men.  No  indeed,  Socrates,  they  are  anything  but 
agreed;  and  you  may  hear  them  saying  at  one  time 
that  virtue  can  be  taught,  and  then  again  the  reverse. 

Soc.  Can  we  call  them  teachers  who  do  not  acknowl¬ 
edge  the  possibility  of  their  own  vocation? 

Men.  I  think  not,  Socrates. 

Soc.  And  what  do  you  think  of  these  Sophists,  who 
are  the  only  professors?  Do  they  seem  to  you  to  be 
teachers  of  virtue? 

Men.  I  often  wonder,  Socrates,  that  you  never  hear 
Gorgias  promising  to  teach  virtue :  and  when  he  hears 
others  promising  this  he  only  laughs  at  them ;  but  he 
thinks  that  you  ought  to  teach  men  to  speak. 

Soc.  Then  do  you  not  think  that  the  Sophists  are 
teachers  ? 

Men.  I  can  not  tell  you,  Socrates;  like  the  rest  of 
the  world,  I  am  in  doubt,  and  sometimes  I  think  that 
they  are  teachers  and  sometimes  not. 

Soc.  And  are  you  aware  that  not  you  only  and  other 
political  men  have  doubts  whether  virtue  can  be  taught 
or  not,  but  that  Theognis  the  poet  says  the  very  same 
thing  —  are  you  aware  of  that? 

Men.  Where  does  he  imply  that? 

Soc.  In  the  elegiac  verses,  in  which  he  says:  — 

“  Eat  and  drink  and  sit  with  the  mighty,  and  make  yourself 
agreeable  to  them;  for  from  the  good  you  will  learn  what  is 
good,  but  if  you  mix  with  the  bad  you  will  lose  the  intelligence 
which  you  already  have.” 

Do  you  observe  that  here  he  seems  to  imply  that  vir¬ 
tue  can  be  taught? 

Men.  Clearly. 


MENO 


49 


Soc.  But  in  some  other  verses  he  shifts  about  and 
says :  — 

“  If  understanding  could  be  created  and  put  into  a  man,  then 
they  (who  were  able  to  accomplish  this)  would  have  obtained 
great  rewards.” 

And  again :  — 

“  Never  did  a  bad  son  spring  from  a  good  sire  because  he 
heard  the  voice  of  instruction;  not  by  teaching  will  you  ever 
make  a  bad  man  into  a  good  one.” 

And  this,  as  you  may  remark,  is  a  contradiction  of 
the  other. 

Men .  That  is  palpable. 

Soc .  And  is  there  anything  else  of  which  the 
teachers  and  professors  are  not  only  asserted  not  to 
be  teachers  of  others,  but  to  be  ignorant  themselves  of 
that  which  they  profess  to  teach  and  bad  at  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  that  which  they  preach ;  and  about  which  the 
acknowledged  “  gentlemen  ”  are  themselves  saying 
sometimes  that  “  this  thing  can  be  taught,”  and  some¬ 
times  not.  Can  you  say  that  they  are  teachers  of  au¬ 
thority  whose  ideas  are  in  this  state  of  confusion? 

Men.  I  should  say,  certainly  not. 

Soc.  But  if  neither  the  Sophists  nor  the  gentle¬ 
men  are  teachers,  clearly  there  can  be  no  other 
teachers  ? 

Men.  No. 

Soc.  And  if  there  are  no  teachers,  neither  are  there 
disciples? 

Men.  Agreed. 

Soc.  And  we  have  admitted  that  a  thing  can  not  be 
taught  of  which  there  are  neither  teachers  nor  dis¬ 
ciples? 

Men.  We  have. 

Soc.  And  there  are  no  teachers  of  virtue  to  be  found 
anywhere  ? 


50 


MENO 


Men .  There  are  not. 

Soc.  And  if  there  are  no  teachers  neither  are  there 
scholars? 

Men .  I  think  that  is  true. 

Soc.  Then  virtue  can  not  be  taught? 

Men.  Not  if  we  are  right  in  our  view.  But  I  can 
not  believe,  Socrates,  that  there  are  no  good  men  in 
the  state.  And  if  there  are,  how  did  they  come  into 
existence  ? 

Soc.  I  am  afraid,  Meno,  that  you  and  I  are  not 
good  for  much,  and  that  Gorgias  has  been  as  poor  an 
educator  of  you  as  Prodicus  has  been  of  me.  Certainly 
we  shall  have  to  look  to  ourselves,  and  try  to  find  some 
one  who  will  help  to  improve  us.  This  I  say,  because 
I  observe  that  in  the  previous  discussion  none  of  us 
remarked  that  right  and  good  action  is  possible  to  man 
under  other  guidance  than  that  of  knowledge ;  —  and 
indeed  if  this  be  denied,  there  is  no  seeing  how  there 
can  be  any  good  men  at  all. 

Men.  How  do  you  mean,  Socrates? 

Soc.  I  mean  this  —  that  good  men  must  necessarily 
be  useful  or  profitable.  Were  we  not  right  in  admit¬ 
ting  that? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  in  supposing  that  they  will  be  useful  only 
if  they  are  true  guides  of  action  —  in  that  we  were 
also  right? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  But  we  do  not  seem  to  have  been  right  in  say¬ 
ing  that  knowledge  only  was  the  right  and  good  guide 
of  action. 

Men.  What  do  you  mean  by  the  word  “  right?  ” 

Soc.  I  will  explain.  If  a  man  knew  the  way  to 
Larisa,  or  anywhere  else,  and  went  to  the  place  and 
led  others  thither,  would  he  not  be  a  right  and  good 
guide  ? 


MENO 


51 


Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  a  person  who  had  a  right  opinion  about 
the  way,  but  had  never  been  and  did  not  know,  might 
be  a  good  guide  also,  might  he  not? 

Men .  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  while  he  has  true  opinion  about  that  which 
the  other  knows,  he  will  be  just  as  good  a  guide  if  he 
thinks  the  truth,  as  if  he  knows  the  truth  ? 

Men.  Exactly. 

Soc.  Then  true  opinion  is  as  good  a  guide  to 
correct  action  as  wisdom ;  and  that  was  the  point 
which  we  omitted  in  our  speculation  about  the  na¬ 
ture  of  virtue,  when  we  said  that  wisdom  only  is  the 

guide  of  right  action;  whereas  there  is  also  right 
opinion. 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  Then  right  opinion  is  not  less  useful  than 
knowledge  ? 

Men.  The  difference,  Socrates,  is  only  that  he  who 
has  knowledge  will  always  be  right;  but  he  who  has 
right  opinion  will  sometimes  be  right,  and  sometimes 
not  right. 

Soc.  What  do  you  mean?  Can  he  be  wrong 

who  has  right  opinion,  as  long  as  he  has  right  opin¬ 
ion? 

Men.  I  admit  the  cogency  of  that,  and  therefore, 
Socrates,  allowing  this,  I  wonder  that  knowledge 
should  be  preferred  to  right  opinion  —  or  why  they 
should  ever  differ. 

Soc.  And  shall  I  explain  this  wonder  to  you? 

Men.  Do  tell  me. 

Soc.  \  ou  would  not  wonder  if  you  had  ever  ob¬ 
served  the  images  of  Daedalus;  but  perhaps  you  have 
not  got  them  in  your  country? 

Men.  Why  do  you  refer  to  them? 

Soc.  Because  they  require  to  be  fastened  in  order 


52 


MENO 


to  keep  them,  and  if  they  are  not  fastened  they  will 
run  away. 

Men.  Well,  what  of  that? 

Soc.  I  mean  to  say  that  it  is  not  much  use  possess¬ 
ing  one  of  them  if  they  are  at  liberty,  for  they  will 
walk  off  like  runaway  slaves ;  but  when  fastened,  they 
are  of  great  value,  for  they  are  really  beautiful  works 
of  art.  Now  this  is  an  illustration  of  the  nature  of 
true  opinions :  while  they  abide  writh  us  they  are  beauti¬ 
ful  and  fruitful,  but  they  run  away  out  of  the  human 
soul,  and  do  not  remain  long,  and  therefore  they  are 
not  of  much  value  until  they  are  fastened  by  the  tie  of 
the  cause;  and  this  fastening  of  them,  friend  Meno, 
is  recollection,  as  has  been  already  agreed  by  us.  But 
when  they  are  bound,  in  the  first  place,  they  have  the 
nature  of  knowledge;  and,  in  the  second  place,  they 
are  abiding.  And  this  is  why  knowledge  is  more 
honorable  and  excellent  than  true  opinion,  because 
fastened  by  a  chain. 

Men.  Yes  indeed,  Socrates,  that  I  should  conjec¬ 
ture  to  be  the  truth. 

Soc.  I  too  speak  not  as  one  who  knows;  and  yet 
that  knowledge  differs  from  true  opinion  is  not  a 
matter  of  conjecture  with  me.  There  are  not  many 
things  which  I  should  affirm  that  I  knew,  but  that  is 
most  certainly  one  of  them. 

Men.  You  are  right,  Socrates. 

Soc.  And  am  I  not  right  also  in  saying  that  true 
opinion  is  as  good  a  guide  in  the  performance  of  an 
action  as  knowledge? 

Men.  That  also  appears  to  me  to  be  true. 

Soc.  Then  right  opinion  is  not  a  whit  inferior  to 
knowledge,  or  less  useful  in  action;  nor  is  the  man 
who  has  right  opinion  inferior  to  him  who  has  knowl- 

edge?  I 

Men.  That  is  true. 


MENO 


53 


Soc.  And  surely  the  good  man  has  been  acknowl¬ 
edged  by  us  to  be  useful? 

Men .  Yes. 

Soc.  Seeing  then  that  men  become  good  and  useful 
to  states,  not  only  because  they  have  knowledge,  but 
because  they  have  right  opinion,  and  neither  knowl¬ 
edge  nor  right  opinion  is  given  to  man  by  nature  or 
acquired  by  him —  (do  you  think  that  either  of  them 
is  given  by  nature  ? 

Men.  Not  I.) 

Soc.  Then  if  they  are  not  given  by  nature,  neither 
are  the  good  by  nature  good  ? 

Men.  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  Amd  nature  being  excluded,  the  next  question 
was  whether  virtue  is  acquired  by  teaching  ? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  If  virtue  was  wisdom,  then,  as  we  thought,  it 
was  taught? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  if  it  was  taught  it  was  wisdom? 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  if  there  were  teachers,  it  might  be  taught; 
and  if  there  were  no  teachers,  not? 

Men.  True. 

Soc.  But  surely  we  acknowledged  that  there  were 
no  teachers  of  virtue? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  Then  we  acknowledged  that  it  was  not  taught, 
and  was  not  wisdom? 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  yet  we  admitted  that  it  was  a  good? 

Men.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  the  right  guide  is  useful  and  good? 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  the  only  right  guides  are  knowledge  and 
true  opinion  —  these  are  the  guides  of  man;  for  things 


54 


MENO 


which  happen  by  chance  are  not  under  the  guidance 
of  man :  but  the  guidance  of  man  are  true  opinion  and 
knowledge. 

Men.  I  think  so  too. 

Soc.  But  if  virtue  is  not  taught,  neither  is  virtue 
knowledge. 

Men.  Clearly  not. 

Soc.  Then  of  two  good  and  useful  things,  one, 
which  is  knowledge,  has  been  set  aside,  and  can  not 
be  supposed  to  be  our  guide  in  political  life. 

Men.  I  think  not. 

Soc.  And  therefore  not  by  any  wisdom,  and  not 
because  they  were  wise,  did  Themistocles  and  those 
others  of  whom  Anytus  spoke  govern  states.  And 
this  was  the  reason  why  they  were  unable  to  make 
others  like  themselves  —  because  their  virtue  was  not 
grounded  on  knowledge. 

Men.  That  is  probably  true,  Socrates. 

Soc.  But  if  not  by  knowledge,  the  only  alternative 
which  remains  is  that  statesmen  must  have  guided 
states  by  right  opinion,  which  is  in  politics  what  divi¬ 
nation  is  in  religion;  for  diviners  and  also  prophets 
say  many  things  truly,  but  they  know  not  what  they 
say. 

Men.  Very  true. 

Soc.  And  may  we  not,  Meno,  truly  call  those  men 
divine  who,  having  no  understanding,  yet  succeed  in 
many  a  grand  deed  and  word? 

Men.  Certainly. 

Soc.  Then  we  shall  also  be  right  in  calling  those 
divine  whom  we  were  just  now  speaking  of  as  diviners 
and  prophets,  as  well  as  all  poets.  Yes,  and  states¬ 
men  above  all  may  be  said  to  be  divine  and  illumined, 
being  inspired  and  possessed  of  God,  in  w7hich  con¬ 
dition  they  say  many  grand  things,  not  knowing  what 
they  say. 


MENO 


55 


Men .  Yes. 

Soc.  And  the  women  too,  Meno,  call  good  men 
divine;  and  the  Spartans,  when  they  praise  a  good 
man,  say  “  that  he  is  a  divine  man.” 

Men.  And  I  think,  Socrates,  that  they  are  right; 
although  very  likely  our  friend  Anytus  may  take 
offence  at  the  name. 

Soc.  I  do  not  care;  as  for  Anytus,  there  will  be 
another  opportunity  of  talking  with  him.  To  sum  up 
our  inquiry  —  the  result  seems  to  be,  if  we  are  at  all 
right  in  our  view,  that  virtue  is  neither  natural  nor 
acquired,  but  an  instinct  given  by  God  to  the  virtuous. 
Nor  is  the  instinct  accompanied  by  reason,  unless 
there  may  be  supposed  to  be  among  statesmen  any 
one  who  is  also  the  educator  of  statesmen.  And  if 
there  be  such  an  one,  he  may  be  said  to  be  among  the 
living  what  Tiresias  was  among  the  dead,  who 
“  alone,”  according  to  Homer,  “  of  those  in  the  world 
below,  has  understanding ;  but  the  rest  flit  as 
shadows.” 

Men.  That  is  excellent,  Socrates. 

Soc.  Then,  Meno,  the  conclusion  is  that  virtue 
comes  to  the  virtuous  by  the  gift  of  God.  But  we 
shall  never  know  the  certain  truth  until,  before  asking 
how  virtue  is  given,  we  inquire  into  the  actual  nature 
of  virtue.  I  fear  that  I  must  go  away,  but  do  you, 
now  that  you  are  persuaded  yourself,  persuade  our 
friend  Anytus.  And  don’t  let  him  be  so  exasperated; 
for  if  you  can  persuade  him  you  will  have  done  some 
service  to  the  Athenian  people. 


EUTHYPHRO 


c 


INTRODUCTION 


In  the  Meno  Anytus  had  parted  from  Socrates  with  the 
threatening  words:  “  That  in  any  city,  and  particularly  in  the 
city  of  Athens,  it  is  easier  to  do  men  harm  than  to  do  them 
good ;  ”  and  Socrates  was  anticipating  another  opportunity  of 
talking  with  him.  In  the  Euthyphro  Socrates  is  already  await¬ 
ing  his  trial  for  impiety  in  the  porch  of  the  King  Archon. 
But  before  the  trial  proceeds,  Plato  would  like  to  put  the  world 
on  their  trial,  and  convince  them  of  ignorance  in  that  very  matter 
touching  which  Socrates  is  accused.  An  incident  which  may 
perhaps  really  have  occurred  in  the  family  of  Euthyphro,  a 
learned  Athenian  diviner  and  soothsayer,  furnishes  the  occasion 
of  the  discussion. 

This  Euthyphro  and  Socrates  are  represented  as  meeting  in 
t  e  porch  of  the  Archon.  Both  have  legal  business  in  hand. 
Socrates  is  defendant  in  a  suit  for  impiety  which  Meletus  has 
brought  against  him  (it  is  remarked  by  the  way  that  he  is  not 
a  likely  man  himself  to  have  brought  a  suit  against  another)  * 
and  Euthyphro  too  is  plaintiff  in  an  action  for  murder,  which 
he  has  brought  against  his  own  father.  The  latter  has  orig¬ 
inated  in  the  following  manner:  — A  poor  dependant  of  the 
amily  of  Euthyphro  had  slain  one  of  their  domestic  slaves  in 
Naxos.  The  guilty  person  was  bound  and  thrown  into  a  ditch 
by  the  command  of  Euthyphro’s  father,  who  sent  to  the  inter¬ 
preters  of  religion  at  Athens  to  ask  what  should  be  done  with 
him.  Before  the  messenger  came  back  the  criminal  had  died 
from  hunger  and  exposure. 

This  is  the  origin  of  the  charge  of  murder  which  Euthyphro 
brings  against  his  father.  Socrates  is  confident  that  before  he 
could  have  taken  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of  such  a  pros¬ 
ecution,  he  must  have  been  perfectly  informed' of  the  nature  of 
piety  and  impiety;  and  as  he  is  going  to  be  tried  for  impiety, 
he  thinks  that  he  can  not  do  better  than  learn  of  Euthyphro 
(who  will  be  admitted  by  all  men,  including  the  judges/to  be 
an  unimpeachable  authority)  what  piety  is,  and  what  is  impiety. 
What  then  is  piety? 

Euthyphro,  who,  in  the  abundance  of  his  knowledge,  is  very 

59 


60 


EUTHYPHRO 


willing  to  undertake  all  the  responsibility,  replies:  That  piety 
is  doing  as  I  do,  prosecuting  your  father  (if  he  is  guilty)  on 
a  charge  of  murder ;  doing  as  the  gods  do  —  as  Zeus  did  to 
Cronos,  and  Cronos  to  Uranus. 

Socrates  has  a  dislike  to  these  tales  of  mythology,  and  he 
fancies  that  this  dislike  of  his  may  be  the  reason  why  he  is 
charged  with  impiety.  “Are  they  really  true?”  “Yes,  they 
are ;  ”  and  Euthyphro  will  gladly  tell  Socrates  some  more  of 
them.  But  Socrates  would  like  first  of  all  to  have  a  more  satis¬ 
factory  answer  to  the  question,  “What  is  piety?”  “Doing  as 
I  do,  charging  a  father  with  murder  ”  may  be  a  single  instance 
of  piety,  but  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  a  general  definition. 

Euthyphro  replies,  that  “  Piety  is  what  is  dear  to  the  gods, 
and  impiety  is  what  is  not  dear  to  them.”  But  may  there  not 
be  differences  of  opinion,  as  among  men,  so  also  among  the  gods? 
Especially  about  good  and  evil,  which  have  no  fixed  rule,  and 
are  precisely  the  sort  of  differences  which  give  rise  to  quarrels. 
And  therefore  what  may  be  dear  to  one  god  may  not  be  dear 
to  another,  and  the  same  action  may  be  both  pious  and  impious ; 
e.  g.  your  chastisement  of  your  father,  Euthyphro,  may  be  dear 
or  pleasing  to  Zeus,  but  not  pleasing  to  Cronos  or  Uranus. 

Euthyphro  answers  that  there  is  no  difference  of  opinion, 
either  among  gods  or  men,  as  to  the  propriety  of  punishing  a 
murderer.  Yes,  rejoins  Socrates,  when  they  know  him  to  be  a 
murderer;  but  that  assumes  the  point  at  issue.  If  all  the  circum¬ 
stances  of  the  case  are  considered,  are  you  able  to  show  that 
your  father  was  guilty  of  murder,  or  that  all  the  gods  are  agreed 
in  approving  of  your  prosecution  of  him?  And  must  you  not 
allow  that  what  is  hated  by  one  god  may  be  liked  by  another? 
Wraiving  this  last,  however,  Socrates  proposes  to  amend  the 
definition,  and  say  that  “  what  all  the  gods  love  is  pious,  and 
what  they  all  hate  is  impious.”  To  this  Euthyphro  agrees. 

Socrates  proceeds  to  analyze  the  new  form  of  the  definition. 
He  shows  that  in  other  cases  the  act  precedes  the  state ;  e.  g.  the 
act  of  being  carried,  loved,  etc.,  precedes  the  state  of  being  car¬ 
ried,  loved,  etc.,  and  therefore  that  which  is  dear  to  the  gods 
is  dear  to  the  gods  because  it  is  first  loved  of  them,  not  loved 
of  them  because  it  is  dear  to  them.  But  the  pious  or  holy  is 
loved  by  the  gods  because  it  is  pious  or  holy,  which  is  equivalent 
to  saying,  that  it  is  loved  by  them  because  it  is  dear  to  them. 
Here  then  appears  to  be  a  contradiction,  —  Euthyphro  has  been 
giving  an  attribute  or  accident  of  piety  only,  and  not  the  es¬ 
sence.  Euthyphro  acknowledges  himself  that  his  explanations 


INTRODUCTION 


61 


seem  to  walk  away  or  go  round  in  a  circle,  like  the  moving  figures 
of  Daedalus,  the  ancestor  of  Socrates,  who  has  communicated 
his  art  to  his  descendants. 

Socrate3,  who  is  desirous  of  stimulating  the  indolent  intelli¬ 
gence  of  Euthyphro,  raises  the  question  in  another  manner:  “  Is 
all  the  pious  just?  ”  “  Yes.”  “  Is  all  the  just  pious?  ”  “  No.” 

“  Then  what  part  of  justice  is  piety?  ”  Euthyphro  replies  that 
piety  is  that  part  of  justice  which  “  attends  ”  to  the  gods,  as 
there  is  another  part  of  justice  which  “attends”  to  men.  But 
what  is  the  meaning  of  “attending”  to  the  gods?  The  word 
“  attending,”  when  applied  to  dogs,  horses,  and  men,  implies 
that  in  some  way  they  are  made  better.  But  how  do  pious  or 
holy  acts  make  the  gods  any  better?  Euthyphro  explains  that 
he  means  by  pious  acts,  acts  of  ministration.  Yes;  but  the 
ministrations  of  the  husbandman,  the  physician,  and  the  builder 
have  an  end.  To  what  end  do  we  minister  to  the  gods,  and  what 
do  we  help  them  to  accomplish?  Euthyphro  replies,  that  there 
is  not  time  for  all  these  difficult  questions  to  be  resolved;  and 
he  would  rather  say  simply  that  piety  is  knowing  how  to  please 
the  gods  in  word  and  deed,  by  prayers  and  sacrifices.  In  other 
words,  says  Socrates,  piety  is  “  a  science  of  asking  and  giving  ” 
—  asking  what  we  want  and  giving  what  they  want ;  in  short, 
a  mode  of  doing  business  between  gods  and  men.  But  although 
they  are  the  givers  of  all  good,  how  can  we  give  them  any  good 
in  return?  “  Nay,  but  we  give  them  honor.”  Then  we  give  them 
not  what  is  beneficial,  but  what  is  pleasing  or  dear  to  them; 
and  this  is  what  has  been  already  disproved. 

Socrates,  although  weary  of  the  subterfuges  and  evasions  of 
Euthyphro,  remains  unshaken  in  his  conviction  that  he  must 
know  the  nature  of  piety,  or  he  would  never  have  prosecuted  his 
old  father.  He  is  still  hoping  that  he  will  condescend  to  instruct 
him.  But  Euthyphro  is  in  a  hurry  and  can  not  stay.  And  Soc¬ 
rates’  last  hope  of  knowing  the  nature  of  piety  before  he  is  prose¬ 
cuted  for  impiety  has  disappeared. 

The  Euthyphro  is  manifestly  designed  to  contrast  the  real 
nature  of  piety  and  impiety  with  the  popular  conceptions  of 
them.  But  although  the  popular  conceptions  are  overthrown, 
Plato  does  not  offer  any  definition  of  his  own:  as  in  the  Laches 
and  Lysis,  he  exhibits  the  subject  of  the  Dialogue  in  several 
different  lights,  but  fails  to  answer  explicitly  his  main  question. 

Euthyphro  is  a  religionist,  and  is  elsewhere  spoken  of  as  the 
author  of  a  philosophy  of  names,  by  whose  “  prancing  steeds  ” 


62 


EUTHYPHRO 


Socrates  in  the  Cratylus  is  carried  away.  He  has  the  conceit 
and  self-confidence  of  a  Sophist;  no  doubt  that  he  is  right  in 
prosecuting  his  father  has  ever  entered  into  his  mind.  Like  a 
Sophist  too,  and  perhaps  like  most  educated  men  of  his  age,  he 
is  incapable  either  of  framing  a  general  definition  or  of  follow¬ 
ing  the  course  of  an  argument.  But  he  is  not  a  bad  man,  and 
he  is  friendly  to  Socrates,  whose  familiar  sign  he  recognizes  with 
interest.  Moreover  he  is  the  enemy  of  Meletus,  who,  as  he  thinks, 
is  availing  himself  of  the  popular  dislike  to  innovations  in  relig¬ 
ion  in  order  to  injure  Socrates;  at  the  same  time  he  is  amusingly 
confident  that  he  has  weapons  in  his  own  armory  which  would 
be  more  than  a  match  for  him.  He  is  quite  sincere  in  his  prose¬ 
cution  of  his  father,  who  has  accidentally  been  guilty  of  homi¬ 
cide,  and  is  not  wholly  free  from  blame.  To  purge  away  the 
crime  appears  to  him  in  the  light  of  a  duty,  whoever  may  be  the 
criminal. 

Thus  begins  the  contrast  between  the  religion  of  the  letter,  or 
of  the  narrow  and  unenlightened  conscience,  and  the  higher  no¬ 
tion  of  religion  which  Socrates  vainly  endeavors  to  elicit  from 
him,  -./  -  Piety  is  doing  as  I  dov>  is  the  first  idea  of  religion  which 
is  suggested  to  his  mind,  and  may  be  regarded  as  the  definition 
of  popular  religion  in  all  ages.  Greek  mythology  hardly  ad¬ 
mitted  of  the  distinction  between  accidental  homicide  and  mur¬ 
der:  that  the  pollution  of  blood  was  the  same  in  both  cases  is 
also  the  feeling  of  the  Athenian  diviner.  He  is  ready  to  defend 
his  conduct  by  the  examples  of  the  gods.  These  are  the  very 
tales  which  Socrates  can  not  abide;  and  his  dislike  of  which,  as 
he  suspects,  has  branded  him  with  the  reputation  of  impiety. 
Here  is  one  answer  to  the  question,  “  Why  Socrates  was  put  to 
death,”  suggested  by  the  way.  Another  is  conveyed  in  the  words, 
“  The  Athenians  do  not  care  about  any  man  being  thought  wise 
until  he  begins  to  make  other  men  wise ;  and  then  for  some  rea¬ 
son  or  other  they  are  angry:  ”  which  may  be  said  to  be  the  rule 
of  popular  toleration  in  most  other  countries,  and  not  at  Athens 
only. 

The  next  definition,  “  Piety  is  that  which  is  loved  of  the  gods,” 
is  shipwrecked  on  a  refined  distinction  between  the  state  and  the 
act,  corresponding  respectively  to  the  adjective  (c^iXoi/)  and  the 
participle  (<£iAov/xevov),  or  rather  perhaps  to  the  participle  and 
the  verb  (<£tAou^uevov  and  ^uXeirai).  The  words  loved  of  the 
gods  ”  express  an  attribute  only,  and  not  the  essence  of  piety. 
Then  follows  the  third  and  last  definition  “  Piety  is  a  part  of 
justice.”  Thus  far  Socrates  has  proceeded  in  placing  religion 


INTRODUCTION 


63 


on  a  moral  foundation.  To  which  the  soothsayer  adds,  “  attend¬ 
ing  upon  the  gods.”  When  further  interrogated  by  Socrates  as 
to  the  nature  of  this  “  attention  to  the  gods,”  he  replies,  that 
piety  is  an  affair  of  business,  a  science  of  giving  and  asking,  and 
the  like.  Socrates  points  out  the  latent  anthropomorphism  of 
these  notions.  But  when  we  expect  him  to  go  on  and  show  that 
the  true  service  of  the  gods  is  the  service  of  the  spirit,  and  the 
cooperation  wTith  them  in  all  things  true  and  good,  he  stops 
short;  this  was  a  lesson  which  the  soothsayer  could  not  have 
been  made  to  understand,  and  which  every  one  must  learn  for 
himself. 

There  seem  to  be  altogether  three  aims  or  interests  in  this 
little  Dialogue:  (1)  the  dialectical  development  of  the  idea  of 
piety;  (2)  the  antithesis  of  true  and  false  religion,  which  is 
carried  to  a  certain  extent  only;  (3)  the  defence  of  Socrates. 

The  subtle  connection  of  this  Dialogue  with  the  Apology  and 
the  Crito,  the  holding  back  of  the  conclusion;  the  insight  into 
the  religious  world ;  the  dramatic  power  and  play  of  the  two 
characters ;  the  inimitable  irony,  are  reasons  for  believing  that 
it  is  a  genuine  Platonic  writing.  The  spirit  in  which  the  popular 
representations  of  mythology  are  denounced  recalls  the  Repub¬ 
lic.  The  virtue  of  piety  has  been  already  mentioned  as  one  of 
five  in  the  Protagoras,  but  is  not  reckoned  among  the  four  car¬ 
dinal  virtues  of  the  Republic. 


EUTHYPHRO 


PERSONS  OF  THE  DIALOGUE 
Socrates.  Euthyphro. 

Scene:  —  The  Porch  of  the  King  Archon 


Euthyphro .  Why  have  you  left  the  Lyceum, 
Socrates  ?  and  what  are  you  doing  in  the  porch  of  the 
King  Archon?  Surely  you  can  not  be  engaged  in  an 
action  before  the  king,  as  I  am. 

Socrates.  Not  in  an  action,  Euthyphro;  impeach¬ 
ment  is  the  word  which  the  Athenians  use. 

Euth .  What!  I  suppose  that  some  one  has  been 
prosecuting  you,  for  I  can  not  believe  that  you  are 
the  prosecutor  of  another. 

Soc.  Certainly  not. 

Euth.  Then  some  one  else  has  been  prosecuting 
you? 

Soc .  Yes. 

Euth .  And  who  is  he? 

Soc.  A  young  man  who  is  little  known,  Euthyphro ; 
and  I  hardly  know  him:  his  name  is  Meletus,  and  he 
is  of  the  deme  of  Pitthis.  Perhaps  you  may  remember 
his  appearance ;  he  has  a  beak,  and  long  straight  hair, 
and  a  beard  which  is  ill  grown. 

Euth.  No,  I  do  not  remember  him,  Socrates.  And 
what  is  the  charge  which  he  brings  against  you? 

Soc.  What  is  the  charge?  Well,  a  very  serious 
charge,  which  shows  a  good  deal  of  character  in  the 
young  man,  and  for  which  he  is  certainly  not  to  be 
despised.  He  says  he  knows  how  the  youth  are  cor¬ 
rupted  and  who  are  their  corruptors.  I  fancy  that 

65 


66 


EUTHYPHRO 


he  must  be  a  wise  man,  and  seeing  that  I  am  any¬ 
thing  but  a  wise  man,  he  has  found  me  out,  and  is 
going  to  accuse  me  of  corrupting  his  young  friends. 
And  of  this  our  mother  the  state  is  to  be  the  judge. 
Of  all  our  political  men  he  is  the  only  one  who  seems 
to  me  to  begin  in  the  right  way,  with  the  cultivation 
of  virtue  in  youth ;  he  is  a  good  husbandman,  and  takes 
care  of  the  shoots  first,  and  clears  away  us  who  are 
the  destroyers  of  them.  That  is  the  first  step ;  he  will 
afterwards  attend  to  the  elder  branches ;  and  if  he  goes 
on  as  he  has  begun,  he  will  be  a  very  great  public 
benefactor. 

Euth.  I  hope  that  he  may;  but  I  rather  fear, 
Socrates,  that  the  reverse  will  turn  out  to  be  the  truth. 
My  opinion  is  that  in  attacking  you  he  is  simply  aim¬ 
ing  a  blow  at  the  state  in  a  sacred  place.  But  in  what 
way  does  he  say  that  you  corrupt  the  young? 

Soc.  He  brings  a  wonderful  accusation  against  me, 
which  at  first  hearing  excites  surprise :  he  says  that  I 
am  a  poet  or  maker  of  gods,  and  that  I  make  new  gods 
and  deny  the  existence  of  old  ones ;  this  is  the  ground 
of  his  indictment. 

Euth .  I  understand,  Socrates;  he  means  to  attack 
you  about  the  familiar  sign  which  occasionally,  as  you 
say,  comes  to  you.  He  thinks  that  you  are  a  neologian, 
and  he  is  going  to  have  you  up  before  the  court  for 
this.  He  knowTs  that  such  a  charge  is  readily  received, 
for  the  wrorld  is  always  jealous  of  novelties  in  religion. 
And  I  know  that  when  I  myself  speak  in  the  assembly 
about  divine  things,  and  foretell  the  future  to  them, 
they  laugh  at  me  as  a  madman;  and  yet  every  word 
that  I  say  is  true.  But  they  are  jealous  of  all  of  us. 
I  suppose  that  we  must  be  brave  and  not  mind  them. 

Soc .  Their  laughter,  friend  Euthyphro,  is  not  a 
matter  of  much  consequence.  For  a  man  may  be 
thought  wise;  but  the  Athenians,  I  suspect,  do  not 


EUTHYPHRO 


67 


care  much  about  this,  until  he  begins  to  make  other 
men  wise;  and  then  for  some  reason  or  other,  perhaps, 
as  you  say,  from  jealousy,  they  are  angry. 

Euth.  I  have  no  desire  to  try  conclusions  with 
them  about  this. 

Soc.  I  dare  say  that  you  don’t  make  yourself  com¬ 
mon,  and  are  not  apt  to  impart  your  wisdom.  But  I 
have  a  benevolent  habit  of  pouring  out  myself  to  every¬ 
body,  and  would  even  pay  for  a  listener,  and  I  am 
afraid  that  the  Athenians  know  this;  and  therefore,  as 
I  was  saying,  if  the  Athenians  would  only  laugh  at 
me  as  you  say  that  they  laugh  at  you,  the  time  might 
pass  gaily  enough  in  the  court ;  but  perhaps  they  may 
be  in  earnest,  and  then  what  the  end  will  be  you  sooth¬ 
sayers  only  can  predict. 

Euth.  I  dare  say  that  the  affair  will  end  in  noth¬ 
ing,  Socrates,  and  that  you  will  win  your  cause ;  and 
I  think  that  I  shall  win  mine. 

Soc.  And  what  is  your  suit?  and  are  you  the  pur¬ 
suer  or  defendant,  Euthyphro? 

Euth.  I  am  pursuer. 

Soc.  Of  whom? 

Euth.  You  will  think  me  mad  when  I  tell  you 
whom  I  am  pursuing. 

Soc.  Why,  has  the  fugitive  wings? 

Euth.  Nay,  he  is  not  very  volatile  at  his  time  of 
life. 

Soc.  Who  is  he? 

Euth.  My  father. 

Soc.  Your  father!  good  heavens,  you  don’t  mean 
that? 

Euth.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  of  what  is  he  accused? 

Euth.  Murder,  Socrates. 

Soc.  By  the  powers,  Euthyphro!  how  little  does 
the  common  herd  know  of  the  nature  of  right  and 


68 


EUTHYPHRO 


truth.  A  man  must  be  an  extraordinary  man  and 
have  made  great  strides  in  wisdom,  before  he  could 
have  seen  his  way  to  this. 

Euth.  Indeed,  Socrates,  he  must  have  made  great 
strides. 

Soc.  I  suppose  that  the  man  whom  your  father 
murdered  was  one  of  your  relatives;  if  he  had  been  a 
stranger  you  would  never  have  thought  of  prosecuting 
him. 

Euth.  I  am  amused,  Socrates,  at  your  making  a 
distinction  between  one  who  is  a  relation  and  one 
who  is  not  a  relation;  for  surely  the  pollution  is 
the  same  in  either  case,  if  you  knowingly  associate 
with  the  murderer  when  you  ought  to  clear  your¬ 
self  by  proceeding  against  him.  The  real  question 
is  whether  the  murdered  man  has  been  justly  slain. 
If  justly,  then  your  duty  is  to  let  the  matter 
alone;  but  if  unjustly,  then  even  if  the  murderer 
is  under  the  same  roof  with  you  and  eats  at  the 
same  table,  proceed  against  him.  Now  the  man 
who  is  dead  was  a  poor  dependant  of  mine  who 
worked  for  us  as  a  field  laborer  at  Naxos,  and  one 
day  in  a  fit  of  drunken  passion  he  got  into  a  quarrel 
with  one  of  our  domestic  servants  and  slew  him.  My 
father  bound  him  hand  and  foot  and  threw  him  into 
a  ditch,  and  then  sent  to  Athens  to  ask  of  a  diviner 
what  he  should  do  with  him.  Meantime  he  had  no 
care  or  thought  of  him,  being  under  the  impression 
that  he  was  a  murderer;  and  that  even  if  he  did  die 
there  would  be  no  great  harm.  And  this  was  just 
what  happened.  For  such  was  the  effect  of  cold  and 
hunger  and  chains  upon  him,  that  before  the  mes¬ 
senger  returned  from  the  diviner,  he  was  dead.  And 
my  father  and  family  are  angry  with  me  for  taking 
the  part  of  the  murderer  and  prosecuting  my  father. 
They  say  that  he  did  not  kill  him,  and  if  he  did,  the 


EUTHYPHRO 


69 


dead  man  was  but  a  murderer,  and  I  ought  not  to  take 
any  notice,  for  that  a  son  is  impious  who  prosecutes 
a  father.  That  shows,  Socrates,  how  little  they  know 
of  the  opinions  of  the  gods  about  piety  and  impiety. 

Soc.  Good  heavens,  Euthyphro !  and  have  you  such 
a  precise  knowledge  of  piety  and  impiety,  and  of 
divine  things  in  general,  that,  supposing  the  circum¬ 
stances  to  be  as  you  state,  you  are  not  afraid  that  you 
too  may  be  doing  an  impious  thing  in  bringing  an 
action  against  your  father? 

Euth.  The  best  of  Euthyphro,  and  that  which  dis¬ 
tinguishes  him,  Socrates,  from  other  men,  is  his  exact 
knowledge  of  all  these  matters.  What  should  I  be 
good  for  without  that?  v 

Soc.  Rare  friend !  I  think  that  I  can  not  do  better 
than  be  your  disciple,  before  the  trial  with  Meletus 
comes  on.  Then  I  shall  challenge  him,  and  say  that  I 
have  always  had  a  great  interest  in  religious  questions, 
and  now,  as  he  charges  me  with  rash  imaginations  and 
innovations  in  religion,  I  have  become  your  disciple. 
Now  you,  Meletus,  as  I  shall  say  to  him,  acknowledge 
Euthyphro  to  be  a  great  theologian,  and  sound  in  his 
opinions;  and  if  you  think  that  of  him  you  ought  to 
think  the  same  of  me,  and  not  have  me  into  court ;  you 
should  begin  by  indicting  him  who  is  my  teacher,  and 
who  is  the  real  corruptor,  not  of  the  young,  but  of  the 
old ;  that  is  to  say,  of  myself  whom  he  instructs,  and  of 
his  old  father  whom  he  admonishes  and  chastises.  And 
if  Meletus  refuses  to  listen  to  me,  but  will  go  on,  and 
will  not  shift  the  indictment  from  me  to  you,  I  can  not  4 
do  better  than  say  in  the  court  that  I  challenged  him 
in  this  way. 

Euth.  Yes,  Socrates;  and  if  he  attempts  to  indict 
me  I  am  mistaken  if  I  don’t  find  a  flaw  in  him;  the 
court  shall  have  a  great  deal  more  to  say  to  him  than 
to  me. 


70 


EUTHYPHEO 


Soc .  I  know  that,  dear  friend;  and  that  is  the 
reason  why  I  desire  to  be  your  disciple.  For  I  observe 
that  no  one,  not  even  Meletus,  appears  to  notice  you ; 
but  his  sharp  eyes  have  found  me  out  at  once,  and  he 
has  indicted  me  for  impiety.  And  therefore,  I  adjure 
you  to  tell  me  the  nature  of  piety  and  impiety,  which 
you  said  that  you  knew  so  well,  and  of  murder,  and 
the  rest  of  them.  What  are  they?  Is  not  piety  in 
every  action  always  the  same?  and  impiety,  again,  is 
not  that  always  the  opposite  of  piety,  and  also  the 
same  with  itself,  having,  as  impiety,  one  notion  which 
includes  whatever  is  impious  ? 

Euth.  To  be  sure,  Socrates. 

Soc.  And  what  is  piety,  and  what  is  impiety? 

Euth.  Piety  is  doing  as  I  am  doing ;  that  is  to  say, 
prosecuting  any  one  who  is  guilty  of  murder,  sacri¬ 
lege,  or  of  any  other  similar  crime  —  whether  he  be 
your  father  or  mother,  or  some  other  person,  that 
makes  no  difference  —  and  not  prosecuting  them  is 
impiety.  And  please  to  consider,  Socrates,  what  a 
notable  proof  I  will  give  you  of  the  truth  of  what  I 
am  saying,  which  I  have  already  given  to  others :  — 
of  the  truth,  I  mean,  of  the  principle  that  the  impious, 
whoever  he  may  be,  ought  not  to  go  unpunished.  For 
do  not  men  regard  Zeus  as  the  best  and  most  right¬ 
eous  of  the  gods  ?  —  and  even  they  admit  that  he  bound 
his  father  (Cronos)  because  he  wickedly  devoured  his 
sons,  and  that  he  too  had  punished  his  own  father 
(Uranus)  for  a  similar  reason,  in  a  nameless  manner. 
And  yet  when  I  proceed  against  my  father,  they  are 
angry  with  me.  This  is  their  inconsistent  way  of  talk¬ 
ing  when  the  gods  are  concerned,  and  when  jt  am  con¬ 
cerned. 

Soc.  May  not  this  be  the  reason,  Euthyphro,  why 
I  am  charged  with  impiety  —  that  I  can  not  away 
with  these  stories  about  the  gods?  and  therefore  I 


EUTHYPHRO 


71 


suppose  that  people  think  me  wrong.  Rut,  as  you 
who  are  well  informed  about  them  approve  of  them,  I 
can  not  do  better  than  assent  to  your  superior  wisdom. 
For  what  else  can  I  say,  confessing  as  I  do,  that  I 
know  nothing  of  them.  I  wish  you  would  tell  me 
whether  you  really  believe  that  they  are  true? 

Euth.  Yes,  Socrates;  and  things  more  wonderful 
still,  of  which  the  world  is  in  ignorance. 

Soc.  And  do  you  really  believe  that  the  gods 
fought  with  one  another,  and  had  dire  quarrels,  bat¬ 
tles,  and  the  like,  as  the  poets  say,  and  as  you  may  see 
represented  in  the  works  of  great  artists?  The  tem¬ 
ples  are  full  of  them ;  and  notably  the  robe  of  Athene, 
which  is  carried  up  to  the  Acropolis  at  the  great 
Panathenaea,  is  embroidered  with  them.  Are  all  these 
tales  of  the  gods  true,  Euthyphro? 

Euth .  Yes,  Socrates;  and,  as  I  was  saying,  I  can 
tell  you,  if  you  would  like  to  hear  them,  many  other 
things  about  the  gods  which  would  quite  amaze  you. 

Soc.  I  dare  say;  and  you  shall  tell  me  them  at  some 
other  time  when  I  have  leisure.  But  just  at  present 
I  would  rather  hear  from  you  a  more  precise  answer, 
which  you  have  not  as  yet  given,  my  friend,  to  the 
question,  What  is  “  piety?  ”  In  reply,  you  only  say 
that  piety  is,  Doing  as  you  do,  charging  your  father 
with  murder? 

Euth.  And  that  is  true,  Socrates. 

Soc.  I  dare  say,  Euthyphro,  but  there  are  many 
other  pious  acts. 

Euth.  There  are. 

Soc.  Remember  that  I  did  not  ask  you  to  give  me 
two  or  three  examples  of  piety,  but  to  explain  the 
general  idea  which  makes  all  pious  things  to  be  pious. 
Do  you  not  recollect  that  there  was  one  idea  which 
made  the  impious  impious,  and  the  pious  pious? 

Euth .  I  remember. 


72 


EUTHYPHRO 


Soc .  Tell  me  what  this  is,  and  then  I  shall  have  a 
standard  to  which  I  may  look,  and  by  which  I  may 
measure  the  nature  of  actions,  whether  yours  or  any 
one’s  else,  and  say  that  this  action  is  pious,  and  that 
impious  ? 

Euth.  I  will  tell  you,  if  you  like. 

Soc.  I  should  very  much  like. 

Euth.  Piety,  then,  is  that  which  is  dear  to  the  gods, 
and  impiety  is  that  which  is  noF  dear  to  tEemr 

S oc^  Wer  ^goodTT^OT  have~now  given 

me  just  the  sort  of  answer  which  I  wanted.  But 
whether  it  is  true  or  not  I  can  not  as  yet  tell,  although 
I  make  no  doubt  that  you  will  prove  the  truth  of  your 
words. 

Euth.  Of  course. 

Soc .  Come,  then,  and  let  us  examine  what  we  are 
saying.  That  thing  or  person  which  is  dear  to  the 
gods  is  pious,  and  that  thing  or  person  which  is  hateful 
to  the  gods  is  impious.  Was  not  that  said  ? 

Euth.  Yes,  that  was  said. 

Soc.  And  that  seems  to  have  been  very  well  said 
too? 

Euth.  Yes,  Socrates,  I  think  that;  it  was  certainly 
said. 

Soc.  And  further,  Euthyphro,  the  gods  were  ad¬ 
mitted  to  have  enmities  and  hatreds  and  differences  — 
that  was  also  said? 

Euth.  Yes,  that  was  said. 

Soc.  And  what  sort  of  difference  creates  enmity 
and  anger?  Suppose  for  example  that  you  and  I,  my 
good  friend,  differ  about  a  number ;  do  differences  of 
this  sort  make  us  enemies  and  set  us  at  variance  with 
one  another?  Do  we  not  go  at  once  to  calculation, 
and  end  them  by  a  sum? 

Euth.  True. 

Soc.  Or  suppose  that  we  differ  about  magnitudes, 


EUTHYPHRO  73 

do  we  not  quickly  put  an  end  to  that  difference  by 
measuring  ? 

Euth.  That  is  true. 

Soc.  And  we  end  a  controversy  about  heavy  and 
light  by  resorting  to  a  weighing-machine  ? 

Euth.  To  be  sure. 

Soc.  But  what  differences  are  those  which,  because 
they  can  not  be  thus  decided,  make  us  angry  and  set 
us  at  enmity  with  one  another?  I  dare  say  the  answer 
does  not  occur  to  you  at  the  moment,  and  therefore  I 
wTill  suggest  that  this  happens  when  the  matters  of 
difference  are  the  just  and  unjust,  good  and  evil, 
honorable  and  dishonorable.  Are  not  these  the  points 
about  which,  when  differing,  and  unable  satisfactorily 
to  decide  our  differences,  we  quarrel,  when  we  do 
quarrel,  as  you  and  I  and  all  men  experience? 

Euth.  Yes,  Socrates,  that  is  the  nature  of  the  dif¬ 
ferences  about  which  we  quarrel. 

Soc.  And  the  quarrels  of  the  gods,  noble  Euthy- 
phro,  when  they  occur,  are  of  a  like  nature? 

Euth.  They  are. 

Soc.  They  have  differences  of  opinion,  as  you  say, 
about  good  and  evil,  just  and  unjust,  honorable  and 
dishonorable :  there  would  have  been  no  quarrels 
among  them,  if  there  had  been  no  such  differences  — • 
would  there  now? 

Euth.  You  are  quite  right. 

Soc.  Does  not  every  man  love  that  which  he  deems 
noble  and  just  and  good,  and  hate  the  opposite  of 
them? 

Euth.  Very  true. 

Soc.  But  then,  as  you  say,  people  regard  the  same 
things,  some  as  just  and  others  as  unjust;  and  they 
dispute  about  this,  and  there  arise  wars  and  fightings 
among  them. 

Euth.  Yes,  that  is  true. 


74 


EUTHYPHRO 


Soc.  Then  the  same  things,  as  appears,  are  hated 
by  the  gods  and  loved  by  the  gods,  and  are  both  hate¬ 
ful  and  dear  to  them? 

Euth.  True. 

Soc .  Then  upon  this  view  the  same  things, 
Euthyphro,  will  be  pious  and  also  impious? 

Euth.  That,  I  suppose,  is  true. 

Soc.  Then,  my  friend,  I  remark  with  surprise  that 
you  have  not  answered  what  I  asked.  For  I  certainly 
did  not  ask  what  was  that  which  is  at  once  pious  and 
impious :  and  that  which  is  loved  by  the  gods  appears 
also  to  be  hated  by  them.  And  therefore,  Euthyphro, 
in  thus  chastising  your  father  you  may  very  likely  be 
doing  what  is  agreeable  to  Zeus  but  disagreeable  to 
Cronos  or  Uranus,  and  what  is  acceptable  to 
Hephaestus  but  unacceptable  to  Here,  and  there  may 
be  other  gods  who  have  similar  differences  of  opinion. 

Euth .  But  I  believe,  Socrates,  that  all  the  gods 
would  be  agreed  as  to  the  propriety  of  punishing  a 
murderer:  there  would  be  no  difference  of  opinion 
about  that. 

Soc.  Well,  but  speaking  of  men,  Euthyphro,  did 
you  ever  hear  any  one  arguing  that  a  murderer  or  any 
sort  of  evil-doer  ought  to  be  let  off? 

Euth.  I  should  rather  say  that  they  are  always 
arguing  this,  especially  in  courts  of  law :  they  commit 
all  sorts  of  crimes,  and  there  is  nothing  that  they  will 
not  do  or  say  in  order  to  escape  punishment. 

Soc.  But  do  they  admit  their  guilt,  Euthyphro, 
and  yet  say  that  they  ought  not  to  be  punished? 

Euth.  No;  they  do  not. 

Soc.  Then  there  are  some  things  which  they  do 
not  venture  to  say  and  do:  for  they  do  not  venture  to 
argue  that  the  guilty  are  to  be  unpunished,  but  they 
deny  their  guilt,  do  they  not? 

Euth.  Yes. 


EUTHYPHRO 


75 


Soc.  Then  they  do  not  argue  that  the  evil-doer 
should  not  be  punished,  but  they  argue  about  the 
fact  of  who  the  evil-doer  is,  and  what  he  did  and 
when? 

Euth.  True. 

Soc .  And  the  gods  are  in  the  same  case,  if  as  you 
imply  they  quarrel  about  just  and  unjust,  and  some 
of  them  say  that  they  wrrong  one  another,  and  others 
of  them  deny  this.  For  surely  neither  God  nor  man 
will  ever  venture  to  say  that  the  doer  of  evil  is  not  to 
be  punished:  —  you  don’t  mean  to  tell  me  that? 

Euth.  That  is  true,  Socrates,  in  the  main. 

Soc.  But  they  join  issue  about  particulars;  and 
this  applies  not  only  to  men  but  to  the  gods;  if  they 
dispute  at  all  they  dispute  about  some  act  which  is 
called  in  question,  and  which  some  affirm  to  be  just, 
others  to  be  unjust.  Is  not  that  true? 

Euth.  Quite  true. 

Soc.  Well  then,  my  dear  friend  Euthyphro,  do  tell 
me,  for  my  better  instruction  and  information,  what 
proof  have  you  that  in  the  opinion  of  all  the  gods  a 
servant  who  is  guilty  of  murder,  and  is  put  in  chains 
by  the  master  of  the  dead  man,  and  dies  because  he  is 
put  in  chains  before  his  corrector  can  learn  from  the 
interpreters  what  he  ought  to  do  with  him,  dies  un¬ 
justly;  and  that  on  behalf  of  such  an  one  a  son  ought 
to  proceed  against  his  father  and  accuse  him  of  mur¬ 
der.  How  w^ould  you  show  that  all  the  gods  absolutely 
agree  in  approving  of  his  act?  Prove  to  me  that,  and 
I  will  applaud  your  wisdom  as  long  as  you  live. 

Euth.  That  would  not  be  an  easy  task,  although 
I  could  make  the  matter  very  clear  indeed  to  you. 

Soc.  I  understand;  you  mean  to  say  that  I  am  not 
so  quick  of  apprehension  as  the  judges:  for  to  them 
you  will  be  sure  to  prove  that  the  act  is  unjust,  and 
hateful  to  the  gods. 


76  EUTHYPHRO 

Euth.  Yes  indeed,  Socrates;  at  least  if  they  will 
listen  to  me. 

Soc.  But  they  will  be  sure  to  listen  if  they  find  that 
you  are  a  good  speaker.  There  was  a  notion  that  came 
into  my  mind  while  you  were  speaking ;  I  said  to  my¬ 
self :  “  Well,  and  what  if  Euthyphro  does  prove  to  me 
that  all  the  gods  regarded  the  death  of  the  serf  as  un¬ 
just,  how  do  I  know  anything  more  of  the  nature  of 
piety  and  impiety?  for  granting  that  this  action  may 
be  hateful  to  the  gods,  still  these  distinctions  have  no 
bearing  on  the  definition  of  piety  and  impiety,  for 
that  which  is  hateful  to  the  gods  has  been  shown  to  be 
also  pleasing  and  dear  to  them.”  And  therefore, 
Euthyphro,  I  don’t  ask  you  to  prove  this ;  I  will  sup¬ 
pose/ if  you  like,  that  all  the  gods  condemn  and 
abominate  such  an  action.  But  I  will  amend  the 
definition  so  far  as  to  say  that  what  all  the  gods  hate 
is  impious,  and  what  they  love  pious  or  holy;  and 
what  some  of  them  love  and  others  hate  is  both  or 
neither.  Shall  this  be  our  definition  of  piety  and 
impiety? 

Euth.  Why  not,  Socrates? 

Soc.  Why  not!  certainly,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
Euthyphro.  But  whether  this  admission  will  greatly 
assist  you  in  the  task  of  instructing  me  as  you  prom¬ 
ised,  is  a  matter  for  you  to  consider. 

Euth.  Yes,  I  should  say  that  what  all  the  gods 
love  is  pious  and  holy,  and  the  opposite  which  they 
all  hate,  impious. 

Soc.  Ought  we  to  inquire  into  the  truth  of  this, 
Euthyphro,  or  simply  to  accept  the  mere  statement 
on  our  own  authority  and  that  of  others? 

Euth.  We  should  inquire;  and  I  believe  that  the 
statement  will  stand  the  test  of  inquiry. 

Soc.  That,  my  good  friend,  we  shall  know  better 
in  a  little  while.  The  point  which  I  should  first  wish 


EUTHYPHRO 


77 


to  understand  is  whether  the  pious  or  holy  is  beloved 
by  the  gods  because  it  is  holy,  or  holy  because  it  is 
beloved  of  the  gods. 

Euth.  I  don’t  understand  your  meaning,  Socrates. 

Soc.  I  will  endeavor  to  explain:  we  speak  of  car¬ 
rying  and  we  speak  of  being  carried,  of  leading  and 
being  led,  seeing  and  being  seen.  And  here  is  a  dif¬ 
ference,  the  nature  of  which  you  understand. 

Euth.  I  think  that  I  understand. 

S oc .  And  is  not  that  which  is  beloved  distinct  from 
that  which  loves? 

Euth .  Certainly. 

Soc.  Well;  and  now  tell  me,  is  that  which  is  car¬ 
ried  in  this  state  of  carrying  because  it  is  carried,  or 
for  some  other  reason? 

Euth.  No;  that  is  the  reason. 

Soc.  And  the  same  is  true  of  that  which  is  led  and 
of  that  which  is  seen? 

Euth.  True. 

Soc.  And  a  thing  is  not  seen  because  it  is  visible, 
but  conversely,  visible  because  it  is  seen ;  nor  is  a  thing 
in  the  state  of  being  led  because  it  is  led,  or  in  the 
state  of  being  carried  because  it  is  carried,  but  the 
converse  of  this.  And  now  I  think,  Euthyphro,  that 
my  meaning  will  be  intelligible;  and  my  meaning  is, 
that  any  state  of  action  or  passion  implies  previous 
action  or  passion.  It  does  not  become  because  it  is 
becoming,  but  it  is  becoming  because  it  comes ;  neither 
does  it  suffer  because  it  is  in  a  state  of  suffering,  but 
it  is  in  a  state  of  suffering  because  it  suffers.  Do  you 
admit  that? 

Euth.  Yes. 

Soc.  Is  not  that  which  is  loved  in  some  state  either 
af  becoming  or  suffering? 

Euth.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  the  same  holds  as  in  the  previous  in- 


78 


EUTHYPHRO 


stances;  the  state  of  being  loved  follows  the  act  of 
being  loved,  and  not  the  act  the  state. 

Euth.  That  is  certain. 

Soc.  And  what  do  you  say  of  piety,  Euthyphro: 
is  not  piety,  according  to  your  definition,  loved  by  all 

the  gods? 

Euth.  Yes. 

Soc.  Because  it  is  pious  or  holy,  or  for  some  other 
reason? 

Euth.  No,  that  is  the  reason. 

Soc.  It  is  loved  because  it  is  holy,  not  holy  because 
it  is  loved? 

Soc.  And  that  which  is  in  a  state  to  be  loved  of 
the  gods,  and  is  dear  to  them,  is  in  a  state  to  be  loved 
of  them  because  it  is  loved  of  them? 

Euth.  Certainly.  ^  1  _ 

Soc.  Then  that  which  is  loved  of  God,  Euthyphro, 
is  not  holy,  nor  is  that  which  is  holy  loved  of  God, 
as  you  affirm;  but  they  are  two  different  things. 

Euth.  How  do  you  mean,  Socrates? 

Soc.  I  mean  to  say  that  the  holy  has  been  acknowl¬ 
edged  by  us  to  be  loved  of  God  because  it  is  holy,  not 
to  be  holy  because  it  is  loved. 

Soc.  But  that  which  is  dear  to  the  gods  is  dear  to 
them  because  it  is  loved  by  them,  not  loved  by  them 
because  it  is  dear  to  them. 

Euth.  True. 

Soc.  But,  friend  Euthyphro,  if  that  which  is  holy 
is  the  same  as  that  which  is  dear  to  God,  and  that 
which  is  holy  is  loved  as  being  holy,  then  that  which 
is  dear  to  God  would  have  been  loved  as  being  dear 
to  God ;  but  if  that  which  is  dear  to  God  is  dear  to 
him  because  loved  by  him,  then  that  which  is  holy 
would  have  been  holy  because  loved  by  him.  But  now 


EUTHYPHRO 


79 


you  see  that  the  reverse  is  the  case,  and  that  they  are 
quite  different  from  one  another.  For  one  (OeofaXe 9) 
is  of  a  kind  to  be  loved  because  it  is  loved,  and  the 
other  ( oo-lov  )  is  loved  because  it  is  of  a  kind  to  be 
loved.  Thus  you  appear  to  me,  Euthyphro,  when  I 
ask  you  what  is  the  essence  of  holiness,  to  offer  an 
attribute  only,  and  not  the  essence  —  the  attribute 
of  being  loved  by  all  the  gods.  But  you  still  refuse 
to  explain  to  me  the  nature  of  piety.  And  therefore, 
if  you  please,  I  will  ask  you  not  to  hide  your  treas¬ 
ure,  but  to  tell  me  once  more  what  piety  or  holiness 
really  is,  whether  dear  to  the  gods  or  not  (for  that 
is  a  matter  about  which  we  will  not  quarrel) .  And 
what  is  impiety? 

Euth.  I  really  do  not  know,  Socrates,  how  to  say 
what  I  mean.  For  somehow  or  other  our  arguments, 
on  whatever  ground  we  rest  them,  seem  to  turn  round 
and  walk  away. 

Soc.  Your  words,  Euthyphro,  are  like  the  handi¬ 
work  of  my  ancestor  Daedalus;  and  if  I  were  the 
sayer  or  propounder  of  them,  you  might  say  that  this 
comes  of  my  being  his  relation;  and  that  this  is  the 
reason  why  my  arguments  walk  away  and  won’t 
remain  fixed  where  they  are  placed.  But  now,  as 
the  notions  are  your  own,  you  must  find  some  other 
gibe,  for  they  certainly,  as  you  yourself  allow,  show 
an  inclination  to  be  on  the  move. 

Euth.  Nay,  Socrates,  I  shall  still  say  that  you  are 
the  Daedalus  who  sets  arguments  in  motion;  not  I, 
certainly,  make  them  move  or  go  round,  for  they 
would  never  have  stirred,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned. 

Soc.  Then  I  must  be  a  greater  than  Daedalus; 
for  whereas  he  only  made  his  own  inventions  to  move, 
I  move  those  of  other  people  as  well.  And  the  beauty 
of  it  is,  that  I  would  rather  not.  For  I  would  give 
the  wisdom  of  Daedalus,  and  the  wealth  of  Tantalus, 


80 


EUTHYPHRO 


to  be  able  to  detain  them  and  keep  them  fixed.  But 
enough  of  this.  As  I  perceive  that  you  are  indolent, 

I  will  myself  endeavor  to  show  you  how  you  might 
instruct  me  in  the  nature  of  piety;  and  I  hope  that 
you  will  not  grudge  your  labor.  Tell  me,  then,  —  Is 
not  that  which  is  pious  necessarily  just? 

Euth.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  is,  then,  all  which  is  just  pious?  or,  is 
that  which  is  pious  all  just,  but  that  which  is  just  only 

in  part  and  not  all  pious? 

Euth.  I  don’t  understand  you,  Socrates. 

Soc.  And  yet  I  know  that  you  are  as  much  wiser 
than  I  am,  as  you  are  younger.  But,  as  I  was  saying, 
revered  friend,  the  abundance  of  your  wisdom  makes 
you  indolent.  Please  to  exert  yourself,  for  there  is 
no  real  difficulty  in  understanding  me.  What  I  mean 
I  may  explain  by  an  illustration  of  what  I  do  not 
mean.  The  poet  (Stasinus)  sings  — 

“  Of  Zeus,  the  author  and  creator  of  all  these  things, 

You  will  not  tell:  for  where  there  is  fear  there  is  also  reverence.” 

And  I  disagree  with  this  poet.  Shall  I  tell  you  in 

what  I  disagree? 

Euth.  By  all  means. 

Soc.  I  should  not  say  that  where  there  is  fear  there 
is  also  reverence;  for  I  am  sure  that  many  persons 
fear  poverty  and  disease,  and  the  like  evils,  but  I  do 
not  perceive  that  they  reverence  the  objects  of  their 

fear. 

Euth,  Very  true. 

Soc.  But  where  reverence  is,  there  is  fear;  for  lie 
who  has  a  feeling  of  reverence  and  shame  about  the 
commission  of  any  action,  fears  and  is  afraid  of  an  ill 

reputation. 

Euth.  No  doubt. 

Soc.  Then  we  are  wrong  in  saying  that  where  there 


EUTHYPHRO 


81 


is  fear  there  is  also  reverence;  and  we  should  say, 
where  there  is  reverence  there  is  also  fear.  But  there 
is  not  always  reverence  where  there  is  fear;  for  fear 
is  a  more  extended  notion,  and  reverence  is  a  part  of 
fear,  just  as  the  odd  is  a  part  of  number,  and  number 
is  a  more  extended  notion  than  the  odd.  I  suppose 
that  you  follow  me  now? 

Euth.  Quite  well. 

Soc.  That  was  the  sort  of  question  which  I  meant 
to  raise  when  asking  whether  the  just  is  the  pious, 
or  the  pious  the  just;  and  whether  there  may  not  be 
justice  where  there  is  not  always  piety;  for  justice 
is  the  more  extended  notion  of  which  piety  is  only 
apart.  Do  you  agree  in  that? 

Euth.  Yes;  that,  I  think,  is  correct. 

Soc .  Then,  now,  if  piety  is  a  part  of  justice,  I 
suppose  that  we  inquire  what  part?  If  you  had  pur¬ 
sued  the  injury  in  the  previous  cases;  for  instance, 
if  you  had  asked  me  what  is  an  even  number,  and 
what  part  of  number  the  even  is,  I  should  have  had 
no  difficulty  in  replying,  a  number  which  represents 
a  figure  having  two  equal  sides.  Do  you  agree? 

Euth.  Yes. 

Soc.  In  like  manner,  I  want  you  to  tell  me  what 
part  of  justice  is  piety  or  holiness;  that  I  may  be 
able  to  tell  Meletus  not  to  do  me  injustice,  or  indict 
me  for  impiety;  as  I  am  now  adequately  instructed 
by  you  in  the  nature  of  piety  or  holiness,  and  their 
opposites. 

Euth.  Piety  or  holiness,  Socrates,  appears  to  me 
to  be  that  part  of  justice  which  attends  to  the  gods, 
as  there  is  the  other  part  of  justice  which  attends  to 
men. 

Soc.  That  is  good,  Euthyphro;  yet  still  there  is  a 
little  point  about  which  I  should  like  to  have  further 
information,  What  is  the  meaning  of  “  attention?  ” 


82 


EUTHYPHRO 


For  attention  can  hardly  be  used  in  the  same  sense 
when  applied  to  the  gods  as  when  applied  to  other 
things.  For  instance,  horses  are  said  to  require  at¬ 
tention,  and  not  every  person  is  able  to  attend  to 
them,  but  only  a  person  skilled  in  horsemanship.  Is 
not  that  true? 

Enth.  Quite  true. 

Soc.  I  should  suppose  that  the  art  of  horsemanship 
is  the  art  of  attending  to  horses? 

Euth.  Yes. 

Soc.  Nor  is  every  one  qualified  to  attend  to  dogs, 
but  only  the  huntsman. 

Euth.  True. 

Soc.  And  I  should  also  conceive  that  the  art  of  the 
huntsman  is  the  art  of  attending  to  dogs? 

Eutli.  Yes.  < 

Soc.  As  the  art  of  the  oxherd  is  the  art  of  attending 
to  oxen  ? 

Euth.  Very  true. 

Soc.  And  as  holiness  or  piety  is  the  art  of  attend¬ 
ing  to  the  gods  ?  —  that  would  be  your  meaning, 
Euthyphro  ? 

Euth.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  is  not  attention  always  designed  for  the 
good  or  benefit  of  that  to  which  the  attention  is  given  ? 
As  in  the  case  of  horses,  you  may  observe  that  when 
attended  to  by  the  horseman’s  art  they  are  benefited 
and  improved,  are  they  not? 

Euth.  True.  j 

Soc.  As  the  dogs  are  benefited  by  the  huntsman’s 
art,  and  the  oxen  by  the  art  of  the  oxherd,  and  all 
other  things  are  tended  or  attended  for  their  good 
and  not  for  their  hurt? 

Euth.  Certainly,  not  for  their  hurt. 

Soc.  But  for  their  good? 

Euth .  Of  course. 


EUTHYPHRO 


83 


Soc.  And  does  piety  or  holiness,  which  has  been 
defined  as  the  art  of  attending  to  the  gods,  benefit  or 
improve  them?  Would  you  say  that  when  you  do  a 
holy  act  you  make  any  of  the  gods  better  ? 

Euth.  No,  no;  that  is  certainly  not  my  meaning. 

Soc.  Indeed,  Euthyphro,  I  did  not  suppose  that 
this  was  your  meaning ;  far  otherwise.  And  that  wras 
the  reason  why  I  asked  you  the  nature  of  this  atten¬ 
tion,  because  I  thought  that  this  was  not  your 
meaning. 

Euth.  You  do  me  justice,  Socrates;  for  that  is  not 
:  my  meaning. 

Soc.  Good :  but  I  must  still  ask  what  is  this  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  gods  wThich  is  called  piety? 

Euth.  It  is  such,  Socrates,  as  servants  show  to  their 
masters. 

Soc.  I  understand  —  a  sort  of  ministration  to  the 
gods. 

Euth.  Exactly. 

Soc.  Medicine  is  also  a  sort  of  ministration  or  serv¬ 
ice,  tending  to  the  attainment  of  some  object  —  would 
you  not  say  health? 

Euth.  Yes. 

Soc.  Again,  there  is  an  art  which  ministers  to  the 
ship-builder  with  a  view  to  the  attainment  of  some 
result? 

Euth.  Yes,  Socrates,  with  a  view  to  the  building 
of  a  ship. 

Soc.  As  there  is  an  art  which  ministers  to  the  house¬ 
builder  with  a  view  to  the  building  of  a  house  ? 

Euth.  Yes. 

1  Soc.  And  now  tell  me,  my  good  friend,  about  this 
art  which  ministers  to  the  gods :  what  work  does  that 
help  to  accomplish?  For  you  must  surely  know  if, 
as  you  say,  you  are  of  all  men  living  the  one  who  is 
best  instructed  in  religion. 


84 


EUTHYPHRO 


Euth.  And  that  is  true,  Socrates. 

Soc.  Tell  me  then,  oh  tell  me  —  what  is  that  fair 
work  which  the  gods  do  by  the  help  of  us  as  their 
ministers? 

Euth.  Many  and  fair,  Socrates,  are  the  works 
which  they  do. 

Soc.  Why,  my  friend,  and  so  are  those  of  a  general. 
But  the  chief  of  them  is  easily  told.  Would  you  not 
say  that  victory  in  war  is  the  chief  of  them? 

Euth.  Certainly. 

Soc.  Many  and  fair,  too,  are  the  works  of  the  hus¬ 
bandman,  if  I  am  not  mistaken;  but  his  chief  work 
is  the  production  of  food  from  the  earth? 

Euth.  Exactly. 

Soc.  And  of  the  many  and  fair  things  which  the 
gods  do,  which  is  the  chief  and  principal  one? 

Euth.  I  have  told  you  already,  Socrates,  that  to 
learn  all  these  things  accurately  will  be  very  tiresome. 
Let  me  simply  say  that  piety  is  learning  how  to  please 
the  gods  in  word  and  deed,  by  prayers  and  sacrifices. 
That  is  piety,  which  is  the  salvation  of  families  and 
states,  just  as  the  impious,  which  is  unpleasing  to  the 
gods,  is  their  ruin  and  destruction. 

Soc.  I  think  that  you  could  have  answered  in  much 
fewer  words  the  chief  question  which  I  asked,  Euthy- 
phro,  if  you  had  chosen.  But  I  see  plainly  that  you 
are  not  disposed  to  instruct  me:  else  why,  when  we 
had  reached  the  point,  did  you  turn  aside?  Had  you 
only  answered  me  I  should  have  learned  of  you  by 
this  time  the  nature  of  piety.  Now,  as  the  asker  of 
a  question  is  necessarily  dependent  on  the  answerer, 
whither  he  leads  X  must  follow ;  and  can  only  ask 
again,  what  is  the  pious,  and  what  is  piety  ?  Do  you 
mean  that  they  are  a  sort  of  science  of  praying  and 

sacrificing? 

Euth.  Yes,  I  do. 


EUTHYPHRO 


85 


Soc.  And  sacrificing  is  giving  to  the  gods,  and 
prayer  is  asking  of  the  gods? 

Euth.  Yes,  Socrates. 

Soc.  Upon  this  view,  then,  piety  is  a  science  of 
asking  and  giving? 

Euth.  You  understand  me  capitally,  Socrates. 

Soc.  Yes,  my  friend;  the  reason  is  that  I  am  a 
votary  of  your  science,  and  give  my  mind  to  it,  and 
therefore  nothing  which  you  say  will  be  thrown  away 
upon  me.  Please  then  to  tell  me,  what  is  the  nature 
of  this  service  to  the  gods?  Do  you  mean  that  we 
prefer  requests  and  give  gifts  to  them? 

Euth.  Yes,  I  do. 

Soc.  Is  not  the  right  way  of  asking  to  ask  of  them 
what  we  want? 

Euth.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  the  right  way  of  giving  is  to  give  to  them 
in  return  what  they  want  of  us.  There  would  be  no 
meaning  in  an  art  which  gives  to  any  one  that  which 
he  does  not  want. 

Euth.  Very  true,  Socrates. 

Soc.  Then  piety,  Euthyphro,  is  an  art  which 
gods  and  men  have  of  doing  business  with  one  an¬ 
other? 

Euth.  That  is  an  expression  which  you  may  use, 
if  you  like. 

Soc.  But  I  have  no  particular  liking  for  anything 
but  the  truth.  I  wish,  however,  that  you  would  tell 
me  what  benefit  accrues  to  the  gods  from  our  gifts. 
That  they  are  the  givers  of  every  good  to  us  is  clear ; 
but  how  we  can  give  any  good  thing  to  them  in  return 
is  far  from  being  equally  clear.  If  they  give  every¬ 
thing  and  we  give  nothing,  that  must  be  an  affair 
of  business  in  which  we  have  very  greatly  the  advan¬ 
tage  of  them. 

Euth.  And  do  you  imagine,  Socrates,  that  any 


86 


EUTHYPHRO 


benefit  accrues  to  the  gods  from  what  they  receive 
of  us? 

Soc.  But  if  not,  Euthyphro,  what  sort  of  gifts  do 
we  confer  upon  the  gods? 

Euth.  What  should  we  confer  upon  them,  but  trib¬ 
utes  of  honor;  and,  as  I  was  just  now  saying,  what 
is  pleasing  to  them? 

Soc.  Piety,  then,  is  pleasing  to  the  gods,  but  not 
beneficial  or  dear  to  them  ? 

Euth.  I  should  say  that  nothing  could  be  dearer. 

Soc.  Then  once  more  the  assertion  is  repeated  that 
piety  is  dear  to  the  gods? 

Euth.  No  doubt. 

Soc.  And  when  you  say  this,  can  you  wonder  at 
your  words  not  standing  firm,  but  walking  away? 
Will  you  accuse  me  of  being  the  Daedalus  who  makes 
them  walk  away,  not  perceiving  that  there  is  another 
and  far  greater  artist  than  Daedalus  who  makes  them 
go  round  in  a  circle;  and  that  is  yourself:  for  the 
argument,  as  you  will  perceive,  comes  round  to  the 
same  point.  I  think  that  you  must  remember  our 
saying  that  the  holy  or  pious  was  not  the  same  as  that 
which  is  loved  of  the  gods.  Do  you  remember  that? 

Euth.  I  do. 

Soc.  And  do  you  not  see  that  what  is  loved  of  the 
gods  is  holy,  and  that  this  is  the  same  as  what  is  dear 
to  them? 

Euth.  True. 

Soc.  Then  either  we  were  wrong  in  that  admission ; 
or,  if  we  were  right  then,  we  are  wrong  now. 

Euth.  I  suppose  that  is  the  case. 

Soc.  Then  we  must  begin  again  and  ask,  What  is 
piety?  That  is  an  inquiry  which  I  shall  never  he 
weary  of  pursuing  as  far  as  in  me  lies;  and  I  entreat 
you  not  to  scorn  me,  but  to  apply  your  mind  to  the 
utmost,  and  tell  me  the  truth.  For,  if  any  man 


EUTHYPHRO 


87 


knows,  you  are  he;  and  therefore  I  shall  detain  you, 
like  Proteus,  until  you  tell.  For  if  you  had  not  cer¬ 
tainly  known  the  nature  of  piety  and  impiety,  I  am 
confident  that  you  would  never,  on  behalf  of  a  serf, 
have  charged  your  aged  father  with  murder.  You 
would  not  have  run  such  a  risk  of  doing  wrong  in  the 
sight  of  the  gods,  and  you  would  have  had  too  much 
respect  for  the  opinions  of  men.  I  am  sure,  therefore, 
that  you  know  the  nature  of  piety  and  impiety. 
Speak  out  then,  my  dear  Euthyphro,  and  do  not  hide 
your  knowledge. 

Euth.  Another  time,  Socrates;  for  I  am  in  a  hurry, 
and  must  go  now. 

Soc.  Alas!  my  companion,  and  will  you  leave  me 
in  despair?  I  was  hoping  that  you  would  instruct  me 
in  the  nature  of  piety  and  impiety,  so  that  I  might 
have  cleared  myself  of  Meletus  and  his  indictment. 
Then  I  might  have  proved  to  him  that  I  had  been 
converted  by  Euthyphro,  and  had  done  with  rash 
innovations  and  speculations,  in  which  I  had  indulged 
through  ignorance,  and  was  about  to  lead  a  better 
life. 


APOLOGY 


INTRODUCTION 


In  what  relation  the  Apology  of  Plato  stands  to  the  real  de¬ 
fence  of  Socrates,  there  are  no  means  of  determining.  It  cer¬ 
tainly  agrees  in  tone  and  character  with  the  description  of  Xeno¬ 
phon,  who  says  in  the  Memorabilia  that  Socrates  might  have 
been  acquitted  “if  in  any  moderate  degree  he  would  have  con¬ 
ciliated  the  favor  of  the  dicasts ;  ”  and  who  informs  us  in  another 
passage,  on  the  testimony  of  Hermogenes,  the  friend  of  Soc¬ 
rates,  that  he  had  no  wish  to  live;  and  that  the  divine  sign  re¬ 
fused  to  allow  him  to  prepare  a  defence,  and  also  that  Socrates 
himself  declared  this  to  be  unnecessary,  on  the  ground  that  all 
his  life  long  he  had  been  preparing  against  that  hour.  For  the 
speech  breathes  throughout  a  spirit  of  defiance,  “  ut  non  supplex 
aut  reus  sed  magister  aut  dominus  videretur  esse  judicum  ”  (Cic. 
de  Orat.  i.  54)  ;  and  the  loose  and  desultory  style  is  an  imitation 
of  the  “  accustomed  manner  ”  in  which  Socrates  spoke  in  “  the 
agora  and  among  the  tables  of  the  money-changers.”  The  allu¬ 
sion  in  the  Crito  may,  perhaps,  be  adduced  as  a  further  evi¬ 
dence  of  the  literal  accuracy  of  some  parts.  But  in  the  main 
it  must  be  regarded  as  the  ideal  of  Socrates,  according  to  Plato’s 
conception  of  him,  appearing  in  the  greatest  and  most  public 
scene  of  his  life,  and  in  the  height  of  his  triumph,  when  he  is 
weakest,  and  yet  his  mastery  over  mankind  is  greatest,  and  the 
habitual  irony  of  his  life  acquires  a  new  meaning  and  a  sort  of 
tragic  pathos  in  the  face  of  death.  The  facts  of  his  life  are 
summed  up,  and  the  features  of  his  character  are  brought  out 
as  if  by  accident  in  the  course  of  the  defence.  The  looseness  of 
the  style,  the  seeming  want  of  arrangement  of  the  topics,  is 
found  to  result  in  a  perfect  work  of  art,  which  is  the  portrait 
of  Socrates. 

Yet  some  of  the  topics  may  have  been  actually  used  by  Soc¬ 
rates;  and  the  recollection  of  his  very  words  may  have  rung 
in  the  ears  of  his  disciple.  The  Apology  of  Plato  may  be  com¬ 
pared  generally  with  those  speeches  of  Thucydides  in  which  he 
has  embodied  his  conception  of  the  lofty  character  and  policy 
of  the  great  Pericles,  and  which  at  the  same  time  furnish  a  com- 

91 


92 


APOLOGY 


mentary  on  the  situation  of  affairs  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  historian.  So  in  the  Apology  there  is  an  ideal  rather  than 
a  literal  truth ;  much  is  said  that  ought  to  have  been  said  but 
was  not  said,  and  is  only  Plato  s  view  of  the  situation.  And  we 
may  perhaps  even  indulge  in  the  fancy  that  the  actual  defence 
of  Socrates  was  as  much  greater  than  the  Platonic  defence  as 
the  master  was  greater  than  the  disciple.  But  in  any  case,  some 
of  the  words  actually  used  have  probably  been  preserved.  It  is 
significant  that  Plato  is  said  to  have  been  present  at  the  defence, 
as  he  is  also  said  to  have  been  absent  at  the  last  scene  in  the 
Phaedo.  Is  it  fanciful  to  suppose  that  he  meant  to  give  the 
stamp  of  authenticity  to  the  one  and  not  to  the  other  ?  espe¬ 
cially  when  we  remember  that  these  two  passages  are  the  only 
ones  in  which  Plato  makes  mention  of  himself.  Moreover,  the 
Apology  appears  to  combine  the  common  characteristics  both  of 
the  Xenophontean  and  Platonic  Socrates,  while  the  Phaedo 
passes  into  a  region  of  thought  which  is  very  characteristic  of 
Plato,  but  not  of  his  master. 

There  is  not  much  in  the  other  Dialogues  which  can  be  com¬ 
pared  with  the  Apology.  The  same  recollection  of  his  master 
may  have  been  present  to  the  mind  of  Plato  when  depicting  the 
sufferings  of  the  Just  in  the  Republic.  The  Crito  may  also  be 
regarded  as  a  sort  of  appendage  to  the  Apology,  in  which  Soc¬ 
rates,  who  has  defied  the  judges,  is  nevertheless  represented  as 
scrupulously  obedient  to  the  laws.  The  idealization  of  the  suf¬ 
ferer  is  carried  still  further  in  the  Gorgias,  in  which  the  thesis 
is  maintained,  that  “to  suffer  is  better  than  to  do  evil;”  and 
the  art  of  rhetoric  is  described  as  only  useful  for  the  purpose  of 
self-accusation.  The  parallelisms  which  occur  in  the  so-called 
Apology  of  Xenophon  are  not  worth  noticing,  because  the  wri¬ 
ting  in  which  they  are  contained  is  manifestly  spurious.  The 
statements  of  the  Memorabilia  respecting  the  trial  and  death 
of  Socrates  agree  generally  with  Plato;  but  they  have  lost  the 
flavor  of  Socratic  irony  in  the  narrative  of  Xenophon.  , 

The  Apology  or  Platonic  defence  of  Socrates  is  divided  into 
three  parts:  1st.  The  defence  properly  so  called;  2nd.  The 
shorter  address  in  mitigation  of  the  penalty;  3rd.  The  last 
words  of  prophetic  rebuke  and  exhortation.  .  , 

The  first  part  commences  with  an  apology  for  his  colloquial 
style;  he  is,  as  he. has  always  been,  the  enemy  of  rhetoric,  and 
knows  of  no  rhetoric  but  truth;  he  will  not  falsify  his  charac¬ 
ter  by  making  a  speech.  Then  he  proceeds  to  divide  his  accusers 
into  two  classes;  first,  there  is  the  nameless  accuser  —  public 


I  • 


INTRODUCTION 

opinion.  All  the  world  from  their  earliest  years  ha( 
he  was  a  corruptor  of  youth,  and  had  seen  him  caricf!1 
the  Clouds  of  Aristophanes.  Secondly,  there  are  the  proll 
accusers,  who  are  but  the  mouth-piece  of  the  others.  The  accd! 
tions  of  both  might  be  summed  up  in  a  formula.  The  first  say 7 
“  Socrates  is  an  evil-doer  and  a  curious  person,  searching  into 
things  under  the  earth  and  above  the  heaven;  and  making  the 
worse  appear  the  better  cause,  and  teaching  all  this  to  others.” 
The  second,  “  Socrates  is  an  evil-doer  and  corruptor  of  the  youth, 
who  does  not  receive  the  gods  whom  the  state  receives,  but  intro¬ 
duces  other  new  divinities.”  These  last  appear  to  have  been  the 
words  of  the  actual  indictment,  of  which  the  previous  formula  is 
a  parody. 

The  answer  begins  by  clearing  up  a  confusion.  In  the  repre¬ 
sentations  of  the  comic  poets,  and  in  the  opinion  of  the  multi¬ 
tude,  he  had  been  confounded  with  the  teachers  of  physical  sci¬ 
ence  and  with  the  Sophists.  But  this  was  an  error.  For  both 
of  them  he  professes  a  respect  in  the  open  court,  which  contrasts 
with  his  manner  of  speaking  about  them  in  other  places.  But 
at  the  same  time  he  shows  that  he  is  not  one  of  them.  Of  nat¬ 
ural  philosophy  he  knows  nothing;  not  that  he  despises  such 
pursuits,  but  the  fact  is  that  he  is  ignorant  of  them,  and  never 
says  a  word  about  them.  Nor  does  he  receive  money  for  teach¬ 
ing;  that  is  another  mistaken  notion,  for  he  has  nothing  to  teach. 
But  he  commends  Evenus  for  teaching  virtue  at  such  a  moderate 
rate.  Something  of  the  “  accustomed  irony,”  which  may  perhaps 
be  expected  to  sleep  in  the  ear  of  the  multitude,  is  lurking  here. 

He  then  goes  on  to  explain  the  reason  why  he  is  in  such  an 
evil  name.  That  had  arisen  out  of  a  peculiar  mission  which  he 
had  taken  upon  himself.  The  enthusiastic  Chaerephon  (prob¬ 
ably  in  anticipation  of  the  answer  which  he  received)  had  gone 
to  Delphi  and  asked  the  oracle  if  there  was  any  man  wiser  than 
Socrates ;  and  the  answer  was,  that  there  was  no  man  wiser. 
What  could  be  the  meaning  of  this  —  that  he  who  knew  nothing, 
and  knew  that  he  knew  nothing,  should  be  declared  by  the  oracle 
to  be  the  wisest  of  men?  Reflecting  upon  this,  he  determined 
to  refute  the  oracle  by  finding  “  a  wiser;  ”  and  first  he  went  to 
the  politicians,  and  then  to  the  poets,  and  then  to  the  craftsmen, 
but  always  with  the  same  result  —  he  found  that  they  knew 
nothing,  or  hardly  anything  more  than  himself ;  and  that  the 
little  advantage  which  in  some  cases  they  possessed  was  more 
than  counterbalanced  by  their  conceit  of  knowledge.  Fie  knew 
nothing,  and  knew  that  he  knew  nothing:  they  knew  little  or 


APOLOGY 


imagined  that  they  knew  all  things.  Thus  he  had 
Ks  life  as  a  sort  of  missionary  in  detecting  the  pretended 

B?m  of  mankind;  and  this  occupation  had  quite  absorbed 
Imi  and  taken  him  away  both  from  public  and  private  affairs. 
Young  men  of  the  richer  sort  had  made  a  pastime  of  the  same 
pursuit^  “  which  was  not  unamusing.”  And  hence  bitter  enmi¬ 
ties  had  arisen;  the  professors  of  knowledge  had  revenged 
themselves  by  calling  him  a  villainous  corruptor  of  the  youth, 
and  by  repeating  the  commonplaces  about  atheism  and  material¬ 
ism  and  sophistry,  which  are  the  stock-accusations  against  all 
philosophers  when  there  is  nothing  else  to  be  said  of  them. 

The  second  accusation  he  meets  by  interrogating  Meletus,  who 
is  present  and  can  be  interrogated.  “  If  he  is  the  corruptor,  who 
is  the  improver  of  the  citizens?”  “All  mankind.”  But  how 
absurd,  how  contrary  to  analogy  is  this !  How  inconceivable 
too,  that  he  should  make  the  citizens  worse  when  he  has  to  live 
with  them.  This  surely  can  not  be  intentional;  and  if  uninten¬ 
tional,  he  ought  to  have  been  instructed  by  Meletus,  and  not 
accused  in  the  court. 

But  there  is  another  part  of  the  indictment  which  says  that 
he  teaches  men  not  to  receive  the  gods  whom  the  city  receives, 
and  has  other  new  gods.  “Is  that  the  way  in  which  he  is  sup¬ 
posed  to  corrupt  the  youth?  ”  “  Yes,  that  is  the  way.”  “  Has 

he  only  new  gods,  or  none  at  all?  ”  “  None  at  all.”  “What, 

not  even  the  sun  and  moon?  ”  “  No;  why,  he  says  that  the  sun 

is  a  stone,  and  the  moon  earth.”  That,  replies  Socrates,  is  the 
old  confusion  about  Anaxagoras;  the  Athenian  people  are  not 
so  ignorant  as  to  attribute  to  the  influence  of  Socrates  notions 
which  have  found  their  way  into  the  drama,  and  may  be  learned 
at  the  theatre.  Socrates  undertakes  to  show  that  Meletus  (rather 
unjustifiably)  has  been  compounding  a  riddle  in  this  part  of  the 
indictment:  “There  are  no  gods,  but  Socrates  believes  in  the 
existence  of  the  sons  of  gods,  which  is  absurd.” 

Leaving  Meletus,  who  has  had  enough  words  spent  upon  him, 
he  returns  to  his  original  accusers.  The  question  may  be  asked, 
Why  will  he  persist  in  following  a  profession  which  leads  him 
to  death  ?  Why  —  because  he  must  remain  at  his  post  where  the 
god  has  placed  him,  as  he  remained  at  Potidaea,  and  Amphip- 
olis,  and  Delium,  where  the  generals  placed  him.  Besides,  he 
is  not  so  overwise  as  to  imagine  that  he  knows  whether  death 
is  a  good  or  an  evil ;  and  he  is  certain  that  desertion  of  his  duty 
is  an  evil/  Anvtus  is  quite  right  in  saying  that  they  should  never 
have  indicted  him  if  they  meant  to  let  him  go.  For  he  will  cer- 


INTRODUCTION 


95 


tainly  obey  God  rather  than  man;  and  will  continue  to  preach 
to  all  men  of  all  ages  the  necessity  of  virtue  and  improvement; 
and  if  they  refuse  to  listen  to  him  he  will  persevere  and  reprove 
them.  This  is  his  way  of  corrupting  the  youth,  which  he  will 
not  cease  to  follow  in  obedience  to  the  god,  even  if  a  thousand 
deaths  await  him. 

He  is  desirous  that  they  should  not  put  him  to  death  —  not 
for  his  own  sake,  but  for  theirs;  because  he  is  their  heaven-sent 
friend  (and  they  will  never  have  such  another),  or,  as  he  may 
be  ludicrously  described,  the  gadfly  who  stirs  the  generous  steed 
into  motion.  Why  then  has  he  never  taken  part  in  public  affairs? 
Because  the  familiar  divine  voice  has  hindered  him;  if  he  had 
been  a  public  man,  and  fought  for  the  right,  as  he  would  cer¬ 
tainly  have  fought  against  the  many,  he  would  not  have  lived, 
and  could  therefore  have  done  no  good.  Twice  in  public  matters 
he  has  risked  his  life  for  the  sake  of  justice  —  once  at  the  trial 
of  the  generals ;  and  again  in  resistance  to  the  tyrannical  com¬ 
mands  of  the  Thirty. 

But,  though  not  a  public  man,  he  has  passed  his  days  in  in¬ 
structing  the  citizens  without  fee  or  reward;  this  was  his  mis¬ 
sion.  Whether  his  disciples  have  turned  out  well  or  ill,  he  can 
not  justly  be  charged  with  the  result,  for  he  never  promised  to 
teach  them  anything.  They  might  come  if  they  liked,  and 
they  might  stay  away  if  they  liked:  and  they  did  come,  because 
they  found  an  amusement  in  hearing  the  pretenders  to  wisdom 
detected.  If  they  had  been  corrupted,  their  elder  relatives  (if 
not  themselves)  might  surely  appear  in  court  and  witness  against 
him,  and  there  is  an  opportunity  still  for  them  to  do  this.  But 
their  fathers  and  brothers  all  appear  in  court  (including  “  this  ” 
Plato),  to  witness  on  his  behalf;  and  if  their  relatives  are  cor¬ 
rupted,  at  least  they  are  uncorrupted;  “  and  they  are  my  wit¬ 
nesses.  For  they  know  that  I  am  speaking  the  truth,  and  that 
Meletus  is  lying.” 

This  is  about  all  thaJLhe  has  to  say.  He  will  not  entreat  the 
judges  to  spare  his  life;  neither  will  he  present  a  spectacle  of 
weeping  children,  although  he,  too,  is  not  made  of  “  rock  or 
oak.”  Some  of  the  judges  themselves  may  have  complied  with 
this  practice  on  similar  occasions,  and  he  trusts  that  they  will  not 
be  angry  with  him  for_jriot  following  their  example.  But  he 
feels  that  such  conduct  brings  discredit  on  the  name  of  Athens: 
he  feels,  too,  that  the  judge  has  sworn  not  to  give  away  justice; 
and  he  can  not  be^  guilty  of  the  impiety  of  asking  the  judge 
to  forswear  himself,  when  he  is  himself  being  tried  for  impiety. 


96 


APOLOGY 


As  he  expected,  and  probably  intended,  he  is  convicted.  And 
now  the  tone  of  the  speech,  instead  of  being  more  conciliatory, 
becomes  more  lofty  and  commanding.  Anytus  proposes  death 
as  the  penalty:  and  what  counter-proposition  shall  he  make? 
He,  the  benefactor  of  the  Athenian  people,  whose  whole  life 
has  been  spent  in  doing  them  good,  should  at  least  have  the 
Olympic  victor’s  reward  of  maintenance  in  the  prytaneum.  Or 
why  should  he  propose  any  counter-penalty  when  he  does  not 
know  whether  death,  which  Anytus  proposes,  is  a  good  or  an 
evil?  and  he  is  certain  that  imprisonment  is  an  evil,  exile  is  an 
evil.  Loss  of  money  might  be  no  evil,  but  then  he  has  none  to 
give;  perhaps  he  can  make  up  a  mina.  Let  that  then  be  the 
penalty,  or,  if  his  friends  wish,  thirty  minae;  for  this  they  will 
be  excellent  securities. 

(He  is  condemned  to  death.) 

He  is  an  old  man  already,  and  the  Athenians  will  gain  nothing 
but  disgrace  by  depriving  him  of  a  few  years  of  life.  Perhaps 
he  could  have  escaped,  if  he  had  chosen  to  throw  down  his  arms 
and  entreat  for  his  life.  But  he  does  not  at  all  repent  of  the 
manner  of  his  defence;  he  would  rather  die  in  his  own  fashion 
than  live  in  theirs.  For  the  penalty  of  unrighteousness  is  swifter 
than  death,  and  that  has  already  overtaken  his  accusers  as  death 
will  soon  overtake  him. 

And  now,  as  one  who  is  about  to  die,  he  will  prophesy  to  them. 
They  have  put  him  to  death  in  order  to  escape  the  necessity  of 
giving  an  account  of  their  lives.  But  his  death  “  will  be  the 
seed  ”  of  many  disciples  who  will  convict  them  of  their  evil  ways, 
and  will  come  forth  to  reprove  them  in  harsher  terms,  because 
they  are  younger  and  more  inconsiderate. 

He  would  like  to  say  a  few  words,  while  there  is  time,  to  those 
who  would  have  acquitted  him.  He  wishes  them  to  know  that 
the  divine  sign  never  interrupted  him  in  the  course  of  his  defence ; 
the  reason  of  which,  as  he  conjectures,  is  that  the  death  to 
which  he  is  going  is  a  good  and  not  an  evil.  For  either  death 
is  a  long  sleep,  the  best  of  sleeps,  or  a  journey  to  another  world 
in  which  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  gathered  together,  and  in 
which  there  may  be  a  hope  of  seeing  the  heroes  of  old  —  in 
which,  too,  there  are  just  judges;  and  as  all  are  immortal,  there 
can  be  no  fear  of  any  one  being  put  to  death  for  his  opinions. 

Nothing  evil  can  happen  to  the  good  man  either  in  life  or 
death,  and  his  own  death  has  been  permitted  by  the  gods,  be- 


INTRODUCTION 


97 


cause  it  was  better  for  him  to  depart;  and  therefore  he  forgives 
his  judges  because  they  have  done  him  no  harm,  although  they 
never  meant  to  do  him  any  good. 

He  has  a  last  request  to  make  to  them  —  that  they  will  trouble 
his  sons  as  he  has  troubled  them,  if  they  appear  to  prefer  riches 
to  virtue,  or  to  think  themselves  something  when  they  are  noth¬ 
ing. 


“  Few  persons  will  be  found  to  wish  that  Socrates  should 
have  defended  himself  otherwise,”  —  if,  as  we  must  add,  his 
defence  was  that  with  which  Plato  has  provided  him.  But  leav¬ 
ing  this  question,  which  does  not  admit  of  a  precise  solution,  we 
may  go  on  to  ask  what  was  the  impression  which  Plato  in  the 
Apology  intended  to  leave  of  the  character  and  conduct  of  his 
master  in  the  last  great  scene?  Did  he  intend  to  represent  him 
(1)  as  employing  sophistries;  (2)  as  designedly  irritating  the 
judgekUOr  are  these  sophistries  to  “Be  regarded  as  belonging 
fo“the  age  in  which  he  lived  and  to  his  personal  character,  and 
this  apparent  haughtiness  as  flowing  from  the  natural  elevation 
of  his  position? 

For  example,  when  he  says  that  it  is  absurd  to  suppose  that 
one  man  is  the  corruptor  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  the  im¬ 
provers  of  the  youth;  or,  when  he  argues  that  he  never  could 
have  corrupted  the  men  with  whom  he  had  to  live;  or,  when  he 
proves  his  belief  in  the  gods  because  he  believes  in  the  sons  of 
gods,  is  he  serious  or  jesting?  It  may  be  observed  that  these 
sophisms” all  occur  in  his  cross-examination  of  Meletus,  who  is 
easily  foiled  and  mastered  in  the  hands  of  the  great  dialectician. 
Perhaps  he  regarded  these  answers  as  all  of  them  good  enough 
for  his  accuser  (he  makes  very  light  of  him  throughout)..  Also 
it  may  be  noted  that  there  is  a  touch  of  irony  in  all  of  them, 
which  takes  them  out  of  the  category  of  sophistry. 

That  the  manner  in  which  he  defends  himself  about  the  lives 
of  his  disciples  is  not  satisfactory,  can  hardly  be  denied.  Fresh 
in  the  memory  of  the  Athenians,  and  detestable  as  they  de¬ 
served  to  be  to  the  newly  restored  democracy,  were  the  names  of 
Alcibiades,  Critias,  Charmides.  It  is  obviously  not  a  sufficient 
answer  that  Socrates  had  never  professed  to  teach  them  any¬ 
thing,  and  is  therefore  not  justly  chargeable  with  their  crimes. 
Yet  the  defence,  when  taken  out  of  this  ironical  form,  is  doubt¬ 
less  sound :  that  his  teaching  had  nothing  to  do  with  their  evil 
lives.  Here,  then,  the  sophistry  is  rather  in  form  than  in  sub- 


98 


APOLOGY 


stance,  though  we  might  desire  that  to  such  a  serious  charge 
Socrates  had  given  a  more  serious  answer. 

Truly  characteristic  of  Socrates  is  another  point  in  his  answer, 
which  may  also  be  regarded  as  sophistical.  He  says  that  “  if 
he  has  corrupted  the  youth,  he  must  have  corrupted  them  in¬ 
voluntarily.”  In  these  words  the  Socratic  doctrine  of  the  in¬ 
voluntariness  of  evil  is  clearly  intended  to  be  conveyed.  But  if, 
as  Socrates  argues,  all  evil  is  involuntary,  then  all  criminals 
ought  to  be  admonished  and  not  punished.  Here  again,  as  in 
the  former  instance,  the  defence  of  Socrates,  which  is  untrue 
practically,  may  yet  be  true  in  some  ideal  or  transcendental  sense. 
The  commonplace  reply,  that  if  he  had  been  guilty  of  corrupting 
the  youth  their  relations  would  surely  have  witnessed  against 
him,  with  which  he  concludes  this  part  of  his  defence,  is  more 
satisfactory. 

Again,  when  Socrates  argues  that  he  must  believe  in  the  gods 
because  he  believes  in  the  sons  of  gods,  we  must  remember  that 
this  is  a  refutation  not  of  the  original  indictment,  which  is  con¬ 
sistent  enough  —  “  Socrates  does  not  receive  the  gods  whom  the 
city  receives,  and  has  other  new  divinities  ”  —  but  of  the  inter¬ 
pretation  put  upon  the  words  by  Meletus,  who  has  affirmed  that 
he  is  a  downright  atheist.  To  this  Socrates  fairly  answers,  in 
accordance  with  the  ideas  of  the  time,  that  a  downright  atheist 
can  not  believe  in  the  sons  of  gods  or  in  divine  things.  The 
notion  that  demons  or  lesser  divinities  are  the  sons  of  gods  is  not 
to  be  regarded  as  ironical  or  sceptical.  But  the  love  of  argument 
may  certainly  have  led  Plato  to  relapse  into  the  mythological 
point  of  view,  and  prevented  him  from  observing  that  the  reason¬ 
ing  is  only  formally  corect. 

The  second  question,  whether  Plato  meant  to  represent 
Socrates  as  needlessly  braving  or.  irritating  his  judges,  must  also 
be  answered  in  the  negative.  His  irony,  his  superiority,  his 
audacity,  “  regarding  not  the  person  of  man,”  necessarily  flow 
out  of  the  loftiness  of  his  situation.  He  is  not  acting  a  part 
upon  a  great  occasion,  but  he  is  what  he  has  been  all  his  life 
long,  “  a  king  of  men.”  He  would  rather  not  appear  insolent, 
if  he  could  avoid  this  (ofy  u)s  av#aSi£o/xevos  tovto  Xeyto).  He  is  not 
desirous  of  hastening  his  own  end,  for  life  and  death  are  simply 
indifferent  to  him.  But  neither  will  he  say  or  do  anything  which 
might  avert  the  penalty;  he  can  not  have  his  tongue  bound,  even 
in  the  “  throat  of  death:  ”  his  natural  character  must  appear. 
He  is  quite  willing  to  make  his  defence  to  posterity  and  to  the 
world,  for  that  is  a  true  defence.  But  such  a  defence  as  would 
be  acceptable  to  his  judges  and  might  procure  an  acquittal,  it  is 


INTRODUCTION 


99 


not  in  his  nature  to  make.  With  his  actual  accusers  he  will  only- 
fence  and  play.  The  singularity  of  the  mission  which  he  ascribes 
to  himself  is  a  great  reason  for  believing  that  he  is  serious  in 
his  account  of  the  motives  which  actuated  him.  The  dedication 
of  his  life  to  the  improvement  of  his  fellow-citizens  is  not  so 
remarkable  as  the  ironical  spirit  in  which  he  goes  about  doing 
good  to  all  men  only  in  vindication  of  the  credit  of  the  oracle, 
and  in  the  vain  hope  of  finding  a  wiser  man  than  himself.  Yet 
this  singular  and  almost  accidental  character  of  his  mission 
agrees  with  the  divine  sign  which,  according  to  our  notions,  is 
equally  accidental  and  irrational,  and  is  nevertheless  accepted 
by  him  as  the  guiding  principle  in  his  life.  Nor  must  we  forget 
that  Socrates  is  nowhere  represented  to  us  as  a  freethinker  or 
sceptic.  There  is  no  reason  whatever  to  doubt  his  sincerity  when 
he  implies  his  belief  in  the  divinity  of  the  sun  and  moon,  or  when 
he  speculates  on  the  possibility  of  seeing  and  knowing  the  heroes 
of  the  Trojan  war  in  another  world.  On  the  other  hand,  his 
hope  of  immortality  is  uncertain;  —  he  also  conceives  of  death 
as  a  long  sleep  (in  this  respect  differing  from  the  Phaedo),  and 
at  last  falls  back  on  resignation  to  the  divine  will,  and  the  cer¬ 
tainty  that  no  evil  can  happen  to  the  good  man  either  in  life  or 
death.  His  absolute  truthfulness  seems  to  hinder  him  from 
asserting  positively  more  than  this.  The  irony  of  Socrates  is 
not  a  mask  which  he  puts  on  at  will,  but  flows  necessarily  out 
of  his  character  and  out  of  his  relation  to  mankind.  This,  which 
is  true  of  him  generally,  is  especially  true  of  the  last  memorable 
act  in  which  his  life  is  summed  up.  Such  irony  is  not  impaired 
but  greatly  heightened  by  a  sort  of  natural  simplicity. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  the  prophecy  at  the  end  of  a  new 
generation  of  teachers  who  would  rebuke  and  exhort  the  Athenian 
people  in  harsher  and  more  violent  terms,  as  far  as  we  know,  was 
never  fulfilled.  No  inference  can  be  drawn  from  this  circum¬ 
stance  as  to  the  probability  of  their  having  been  actually  uttered. 
They  express  the  aspiration  of  the  first  martyr  of  philosophy, 
that  he  would  leave  behind  him  many  followers,  accompanied 
by  the  not  unnatural  feeling  that  they  would  be  fiercer  and  more 
inconsiderate  in  their  words  when  emancipated  from  his  control. 

The  above  remarks  must  be  understood  as  applying  with  any 
degree  of  certainty  to  the  Platonic  Socrates  only.  For,  however 
probable  it  may  be  that  these  or  similar  words  may  have  been 
spoken  by  Socrates  himself,  we  can  not  exclude  the  possibility, 
that  like  so  much  else,  e.  g.  the  wisdom  of  Critias,  the  poem  of 
Solon,  the  virtues  of  Charmides,  they  may  have  been  due  only 
to  the  imaginat;on  of  Plato. 


APOLOGY 


How  you  have  felt,  O  men  of  Athens,  at  hearing 
the  speeches  of  my  accusers,  I  cannot  tell;  but  I 
know  that  their  persuasive  words  almost  made  me 
forget  who  I  was :  —  such  was  the  effect  of  them ; 
and  yet  they  have  hardly  spoken  a  word  of  truth. 
But  many  as  their  falsehoods  were,  there  was  one  of 
them  which  quite  amazed  me ;  —  I  mean  when  thej^ 
told  you  to  be  upon  your  guard,  and  not  to  let  your¬ 
selves  be  deceived  by  the  force  of  my  eloquence. 
They  ought  to  have  been  ashamed  of  saying  this, 
because  they  were  sure  to  be  detected  as  soon  as  I 
opened  my  lips  and  displayed  my  deficiency:  they 
certainly  did  appear  to  be  most  shameless  in  saying 
this,  unless  by  the  force  of  eloquence  they  mean  the 
force  of  truth;  for  then  I  do  indeed  admit  that  I  am 
eloquent.  But  in  how  different  a  way  from  theirs! 
Well,  as  I  was  saying,  they  have  hardly  uttered  a 
word,  or  not  more  than  a  word,  of  truth;  but  you 
shall  hear  from  me  the  whole  truth:  not,  however, 
delivered  after  their  manner,  in  a  set  oration  duly 
ornamented  with  words  and  phrases.  No,  indeed!  but 
I  shall  use  the  words  and  arguments  which  occur  to 
me  at  the  moment;  for  I  am  certain  that  this  is  right, 
and  that  at  my  time  of  life  I  ought  not  to  be  appear¬ 
ing  before  you,  O  men  of  Athens,  in  the  character  of 
a  juvenile  orator  —  let  no  one  expect  this  of  me. 
And  I  must  beg  of  you  to  grant  me  one  favor,  which 
is  this  —  If  you  hear  me  using  the  same  words  in  my 

101 


102 


APOLOGY 


defence  which  I  have  been  in  the  habit  of  using,  and 
which  most  of  you  may  have  heard  in  the  agora,  and 
at  the  tables  of  the  money-changers,  or  anywhere  else, 
I  would  ask  you  not  to  be  surprised  at  this,  and  not 
to  interrupt  me.  For  I  am  more  than  seventy  years 
of  age,  and  this  is  the  first  time  that  I  have  ever  ap¬ 
peared  in  a  court  of  law,  and  I  am  quite  a  stranger 
to  the  ways  of  the  place;  and  therefore  I  would  have 
you  regard  me  as  if  I  were  really  a  stranger,  whom 
you  would  excuse  if  he  spoke  in  his  native  tongue, 
and  after  the  fashion  of  his  country;  —  that  I  think 
is  not  an  unfair  request.  Never  mind  the  manner, 
wdiich  may  or  may  not  be  good;  but  think  only  of 
the  justice  of  my  cause,  and  give  heed  to  that:  let 
the  judge  decide  justly  and  the  speaker  speak  truly. 

And  first,  I  have  to  reply  to  the  older  charges  and 
to  my  first  accusers,  and  then  I  will  go  on  to  the 
later  ones.  For  I  have  had  many  accusers,  who  ac¬ 
cused  me  of  old,  and  their  false  charges  have  con¬ 
tinued  during  many  years;  and  I  am  more  afraid  of 
them  than  of  Anytus  and  his  associates,  who  are  dan¬ 
gerous,  too,  in  their  own  way.  But  far  more  danger¬ 
ous  are  these,  who  began  when  you  were  children, 
and  took  possession  of  your  minds  with  their  false¬ 
hoods,  telling  of  one  Socrates,  a  wise  man,  who  spec¬ 
ulated  about  the  heaven  above,  and  searched  into  the 
earth  beneath,  and  made  the  worse  appear  the  better 
cause.  These  are  the  accusers  whom  I  dread;  for 
they  are  the  circulators  of  this  rumor,  and  their  hear¬ 
ers  are  too  apt  to  fancy  that  speculators  of  this  sort 
do  not  believe  in  the  gods.  And  they  are  many,  and 
their  charges  against  me  are  of  ancient  date,  and  they 
made  them  in  days  when  you  were  impressible  —  in 
childhood,  or  perhaps  in  youth  —  and  the  cause  when 
heard  went  by  default,  for  there  was  none  to  answer. 
And  hardest  of  all,  their  names  I  do  not  know  and 


APOLOGY 


103 


can  not  tell ;  unless  in  the  chance  case  of  a  comic  poet. 
But  the  main  body  of  these  slanderers  who  from  envy 
and  malice  have  wrought  upon  you  —  and  there  are 
some  of  them  who  are  convinced  themselves,  and  im¬ 
part  their  convictions  to  others  —  all  these,  I  say, 
are  most  difficult  to  deal  with;  for  I  can  not  have 
them  up  here,  and  examine  them,  and  therefore  I 
must  simply  fight  with  shadows  in  my  own  defence, 
and  examine  when  there  is  no  one  who  answers.  I 
will  ask  you  then  to  assume  with  me,  as  I  was  saying, 
that  my  opponents  are  of  two  kinds;  one  recent,  the 
other  ancient:  and  I  hope  that  you  will  see  the  pro¬ 
priety  of  my  answering  the  latter  first,  for  these  accu¬ 
sations  you  heard  long  before  the  others,  and  much 
oftener. 

Well,  then,  I  will  make  my  defence,  and  I  will 
endeavor  in  the  short  time  which  is  allowed  to  do 
away  with  this  evil  opinion  of  me  which  you  have  held 
for  such  a  long  time ;  and  I  hope  that  I  may  succeed, 
if  this  be  well  for  you  and  me,  and  that  my  words  may 
find  favor  with  you.  But  I  know  that  to  accomplish 
this  is  not  easy  —  I  quite  see  the  nature  of  the  task. 
Let  the  event  be  as  God  wills:  in  obedience  to  the 
law  I  make  my  defence. 

I  will  begin  at  the  beginning,  and  ask  what  the 
accusation  is  which  has  given  rise  to  this  slander  of 
me,  and  which  has  encouraged  Meletus  to  proceed 
against  me.  What  do  the  slanderers  say?  They  shall 
be  my  prosecutors,  and  I  will  sum  up  their  words  in 
an  affidavit.  “  Socrates  is  an  evil-doer,  and  a  curious 
person,  who  searches  into  things  under  the  earth  and 
in  heaven,  and  he  makes  the  worse  appear  the  better 
cause;  and  he  teaches  the  aforesaid  doctrines  to 
others.”  That  is  the  nature  of  the  accusation,  and  that 
is  what  you  have  seen  yourselves  in  the  comedy  of 
Aristophanes,  who  has  introduced  a  man  whom  he 


104 


APOLOGY 


calls  Socrates,  going  about  and  saying  that  he  can 
walk  in  the  air,  and  talking  a  deal  of  nonsense  con¬ 
cerning  matters  of  which  I  do  not  pretend  to  know 
either  much  or  little  —  not  that  I  mean  to  say  any¬ 
thing  disparaging  of  any  one  who  is  a  student  of 
natural  philosophy.  I  should  be  very  sorry  if  Mele- 
tus  could  lay  that  to  my  charge.  But  the  simple 
truth  is,  O  Athenians,  that  I  have  nothing  to  do  with 
these  studies.  Very  many  of  those  here  present  are 
witnesses  to  the  truth  of  this,  and  to  them  I  appeal. 
Speak  then,  you  who  have  heard  me,  and  tell  your 
neighbors  whether  any  of  you  have  ever  known  me 
hold  forth  in  few  words  or  in  many  upon  matters  of 
this  sort.  ...  You  hear  their  answer.  And  from 
what  they  say  of  this  you  will  be  able  to  judge  of  the 
truth  of  the  rest. 

As  little  foundation  is  there  for  the  report  that  I 
am  a  teacher,  and  take  money ;  that  is  no  more  true 
than  the  other.  Although,  if  a  man  is  able  to  teach, 
I  honor  him  for  being  paid.  There  is  Gorgias  of 
Leontium,  and  Prodicus  of  Ceos,  and  Hippias  of 
Elis,  who  go  the  round  of  the  cities,  and  are  able  to 
persuade  the  young  men  to  leave  their  own  citizens, 
by  whom  they  might  be  taught  for  nothing,  and  come 
to  them,  whom  they  not  only  pay,  but  are  thankful 
if  they  may  be  allowed  to  pay  them.  There  is  actually 
a  Parian  philosopher  residing  in  Athens,  of  whom  I 
have  heard ;  and  I  came  to  hear  of  him  in  this  way :  — 
I  met  a  man  who  has  spent  a  world  of  money  on  the 
sophists,  Callias,  the  son  of  Hipponicus,  and  knowing 
that  he  had  sons,  I  asked  him:  “  Callias,”  I  said,  “  if 
your  two  sons  were  foals  or  calves,  there  would  be 
no  difficulty  in  finding  some  one  to  put  over  them; 
we  should  hire  a  trainer  of  horses,  or  a  farmer  prob¬ 
ably,  who  would  improve  and  perfect  them  in  their 
own  proper  virtue  and  excellence;  but  as  they  are 


APOLOGY 


105 


human  beings,  whom  are  you  thinking  of  placing 
over  them ;  Is  there  any  one  who  understands  human 
and  political  virtue?  You  must  have  thought  about 
this  as  you  have  sons;  is  there  any  one?  ”  “  There 

is,”  he  said.  “  Who  is  he?  ”  said  I;  “  and  of  what 
country?  and  what  does  he  charge?  ”  “  Evenus  the 

Parian,”  he  replied;  “he  is  the  man,  and  his  charge 
is  five  minae.”  Happy  is  Evenus,  I  said  to  myself,  if 
he  really  has  this  wisdom,  and  teaches  at  such  a  mod¬ 
est  charge.  Had  I  the  same,  I  should  have  been  very 
proud  and  conceited ;  but  the  truth  is  that  I  have  no 
knowledge  of  the  kind,  O  Athenians. 

I  dare  say  that  some  one  will  ask  the  question, 
“  Why  is  this,  Socrates,  and  what  is  the  origin  of  these 
accusations  of  you:  for  there  must  have  been  some¬ 
thing  strange  which  you  have  been  doing?  All  this 
great  fame  and  talk  about  you  would  never  have 
arisen  if  you  had  been  like  other  men:  tell  us,  then, 
why  this  is,  as  we  should  be  sorry  to  judge  hastily 
of  you.”  Now  I  regard  this  as  a  fair  challenge,  and 
I  will  endeavor  to  explain  to  you  the  origin  of  this 
name  of  “  wise,”  and  of  this  evil  fame.  Please  to 
attend  then.  And  although  some  of  you  may  think 
that  I  am  joking,  I  declare  that  I  will  tell  you  the 
entire  truth.  Men  of  Athens,  this  reputation  of  mine 
has  come  of  a  certain  sort  of  wisdom  which  I  possess. 
If  you  ask  me  what  kind  of  wisdom,  I  reply,  such 
wisdom  as  is  attainable  by  man,  for  to  that  extent  I 
am  inclined  to  believe  that  I  am  wise;  whereas  the 
persons  of  whom  I  was  speaking  have  a  superhuman 
wisdom,  which  I  may  fail  to  describe,  because  I  have 
it  not  myself ;  and  he  who  says  that  I  have,  speaks 
falsely,  and  is  taking  away  my  character.  And  here, 
O  men  of  Athens,  I  must  beg  you  not  to  interrupt 
me,  even  if  I  seem  to  say  something  extravagant. 
For  the  word  which  I  will  speak  is  not  mine.  I  will 


106 


APOLOGY 


refer  you  to  a  wisdom  who  is  worthy  of  credit,  and 
will  tell  you  about  my  wisdom  —  whether  1  have  any, 
and  of  what  sort  —  and  that  witness  shall  be  the  God 
of  Delphi.  You  must  have  known  Chaerephon;  he 
was  early  a  friend  of  mine,  and  also  a  friend  of  youis, 
for  he  shared  in  the  exile  of  the  people,  and  returned 
with  you.  Well,  Chaerephon,  as  you  know,  was  very 
impetuous  in  all  his  doings,  and  he  went  to  Delphi 
and  boldly  asked  the  oracle  to  tell  him  whether  —  as 
I  was  saying,  I  must  beg  you  not  to  interrupt  he 
asked  the  oracle  to  tell  him  whether  there  was  any  one 
wiser  than  I  was,  and  the  Pythian  prophetess  an¬ 
swered,  that  there  was  no  man  wiser.  Chaerephon 
is  dead  himself ;  but  his  brother,  who  is  in  court,  will 

confirm  the  truth  of  this  story. 

Why  do  I  mention  this?  Because  I  am  going  to 
explain  to  you  why  I  have  such  an  evil  name.  When 
I  heard  the  answer,  I  said  to  myself,  What  can  the 
god  mean?  and  what  is  the  interpretation  of  this 
riddle?  for  I  know  that  I  have  no  wisdom,  small  or 
great.  What  then  can  he  mean  when  he  says  that  I 
am  the  wisest  of  men?  And  yet  he  is  a  god,  and  can 
not  lie;  that  would  be  against  his  nature.  After  long 
consideration,  I  at  last  thought  of  a  method  of  trying 
the  question.  I  reflected  that  if  I  could  only  find  a 
man  wiser  than  myself,  then  I  might  go  to  the  god 
with  a  refutation  in  my  hand.  I  should  say  to  him, 
“  Here  is  a  man  who  is  wiser  than  I  am ;  but  you  said 
that  I  was  the  wisest.”  Accordingly  I  went  to  one 
who  had  the  reputation  of  wisdom,  and  observed  him 
—  his  name  I  need  not  mention ;  he  was  a  politician 
whom  I  selected  for  examination  —  and  the  result 
was  as  follows:  When  I  began  to  talk  with  him,  1 
could  not  help  thinking  that  he  was  not  really  wise, 
although  he  was  thought  wise  by  many,  and  wiser 
still  by  himself;  and  I  went  and  tried  to  explain  to 


APOLOGY 


107 


( 

him  that  he  thought  himself  wise,  but  was  not  really 
wise ;  and  the  consequence  was  that  he  hated  me,  and 
his  enmity  was  shared  by  several  who  were  present 
and  heard  me.  So  I  left  him,  saying  to  myself,  as 
I  went  away:  Well,  although  I  do  not  suppose  that 
either  of  us  knows  anything  really  beautiful  and  good, 
I  am  better  off  than  he  is,  —  for  he  knows  nothing, 
and  thinks  that  he  knows.  I  neither  know  nor  think 
that  I  know.  In  this  latter  particular,  then,  I  seem 
to  have  slightly  the  advantage  of  him.  Then  I  went 
to  another  who  had  still  higher  philosophical  preten¬ 
sions,  and  my  conclusion  was  exactly  the  same.  I 
made  another  enemy  of  him,  and  of  many  others 
besides  him. 

After  this  I  went  to  one  man  after  another,  being 
not  unconscious  of  the  enmity  which  I  provoked,  and 
I  lamented  and  feared  this:  but  necessity  was  laid 
upon  me,  —  the  word  of  God,  I  thought,  ought  to  be 
considered  first.  And  I  said  to  myself,  Go  I  must 
to  all  who  appear  to  know,  and  find  out  the  meaning 
of  the  oracle.  And  I  swear  to  you,  Athenians,  by 
the  dog  I  swear!  —  for  I  must  tell  you  the  truth  — 
the  result  of  my  mission  was  just  this:  I  found  that 
the  men  most  in  repute  were  all  but  the  most  foolish; 
and  that  some  inferior  men  were  really  wiser  and 
better.  I  will  tell  you  the  tale  of  my  wanderings  and 
of  the  “  Herculean  ”  labors,  as  I  may  call  them,  which 
I  endured  only  to  find  at  last  the  oracle  irrefutable. 
When  I  left  the  politicians,  I  went  to  the  poets; 
tragic,  dithyrambic,  and  all  sorts.  And  there,  I  said 
to  myself,  you  will  be  detected;  now  you  will  find 
out  that  you  are  more  ignorant  than  they  are.  Ac¬ 
cordingly,  I  took  them  some  of  the  most  elaborate 
passages  in  their  own  writings,  and  asked  what  was 
the  meaning  of  them  —  thinking  that  they  would 
teach  me  something.  Will  you  believe  me?  I  am 


108 


APOLOGY 


almost  ashamed  to  speak  of  this,  but  still  I  must  say 
/  that  there  is  hardly  a  person  present  who  would  not 
have  talked  better  about  their  poetry  than  they  did 
themselves.  That  showed  me  in  an  instant  that  not 
by  wisdom  do  poets  write  poetry,  but  by  a  sort  of 
genius  and  inspiration ;  they  are  like  diviners  or 
soothsayers  who  also  say  many  fine  things,  but  do  not 
understand  the  meaning  of  them.  And  the  poets 
appeared  to  me  to  be  much  in  the  same  case;  andT 
further  observed  that  upon  the  strength  of  their 
poetry  they  believed  themselves  to  be  the  wisest  of 
men  in  other  things  in  which  they  were  not  wise.  So 
I  departed,  conceiving  myself  to  be  superior  to  them 
for  the  same  reason  that  I  was  superior  to  the  poli¬ 
ticians. 

At  last  I  went  to  the  artisans,  for  I  was  conscious 
that  I  knew  nothing  at  all,  as  I  may  say,  and  I  was 
sure  that  they  knew  many  fine  things ;  and  in  this  I 
was  not  mistaken,  for  they  did  know  many  things 
of  which  I  was  ignorant,  and  in  this  they  certainly 
were  wiser  than  I  was.  But  I  observed  that  even  the 
good  artisans  fell  into  the  same  error  as  the  poets ;  — 
because  they  were  good  workmen  they  thought  tnat 
they  also  knew  all  sorts  of  high  matters,  and  this 
defect  in  them  overshadowed  their  wisdom  —  there¬ 
fore  I  asked  myself  on  behalf  of  the  oracle,  whether 
I  would  like  to  be  as  I  was,  neither  having  their 
knowledge  nor  their  ignorance,  or  like  them  in  both , 
and  I  made  answer  to  myself  and  the  oracle  that  I 
was  better  off  as  I  was. 

This  investigation  has  led  to  my  having  many  ene¬ 
mies  of  the  worst  and  most  dangerous  kind,  and  has 
given  occasion  also  to  many  calumnies.  And  X  am 
called  wise,  for  my  hearers  always  imagine  that  I 
myself  possess  the  wisdom  which  I  find  w  anting  in 
others :  but  the  truth  is,  O  men  of  Athens,  that  God 


APOLOGY 


109 


only  is  wise;  and  in  this  oracle  he  means  to  say  that 
the  wisdom  of  men  is  little  or  nothing;  he  is  not 
speaking  of  Socrates,  he  is  only  using  my  name  as 
an  illustration,  as  if  he  said,  He,  O  men,  is  the  wisest 
who,  like  Socrates,  knows  that  his  wisdom  is  in  truth 
worth  nothing.  And  so  I  go  my  way,  obedient  to 
the  god,  and  make  inquisition  into  the  wisdom  of  any 
one,  whether  citizen  or  stranger,  who  appears  to  be 
wise;  and  if  he  is  not  wise,  then  in  vindication  of  the 
oracle  I  show  him  that  he  is  not  wise;  and  this  occu¬ 
pation  quite  absorbs  me,  and  I  have  no  time  to  give 
either  to  any  public  matter  of  interest  or  to  any  con¬ 
cern  of  my  own,  but  I  am  in  utter  poverty  by  reason 
of  my  devotion  to  the  god. 

There  is  another  thing :  —  young  men  of  the  richer 
classes,  who  have  not  much  to  do,  come  about  me  of 
their  own  accord;  they  like  to  hear  the  pretenders 
examined,  and  they  often  imitate  me,  and  examine 
others  themselves;  there  are  plenty  of  persons,  as 
they  soon  enough  discover,  who  think  that  they  know 
something,  but  really  know  little  or  nothing;  and 
then  those  who  are  examined  by  them  instead  of  being 
angry  with  themselves  are  angry  writh  me :  This  con¬ 
founded  Socrates,  they  say;  this  villainous  misleader 
of  youth !  —  and  then  if  somebody  asks  them,  Why,  | 
what  evil  does  he  practise  or  teach  ?  they  do  not  know, 
and  can  not  tell;  but  in  order  that  they  may  not 
appear  to  be  at  a  loss,  they  repeat  the  ready-made 
charges  which  are  used  against  all  philosophers  about 
teaching  things  up  in  the  clouds  and  under  the  earth, 
and  having  no  gods,  and  making  the  worse  appear 
the  better  cause;  for  they  do  not  like  to  confess  that 
their  pretence  of  knowledge  has  been  detected  — 
wLich  is  the  truth;  and  as  they  are  numerous  and 
ambitious  and  energetic,  and  are  all  in  battle  array 
and  have  persuasive  tongues,  they  have  filled  your 


110 


APOLOGY 


ears  with  their  loud  and  inveterate  calumnies.  And 
this  is  the  reason  why  my  three  accusers,  Msletus  and 
Anytus  and  Lycon,  have  set  upon  me ;  Meletus,  who 
has  a  quarrel  \vith  me  on  behalf  of  the  poets,  An\t,is, 
on  behalf  of  the  craftsmen;  Lycon,  on  behalf  of  the 
rhetoricians:  and  as  I  said  at  the  beginning,  I  can 
not  expect  to  get  rid  of  this  mass  of  calumny  all  in 
a  moment.  And  this,  O  men  of  Athens,  is  the  truth 
and  the  whole  truth;  I  have  concealed  nothing,  I 
have  dissembled  nothing.  And  yet,  I  know  that  this 
plainness  of  speech  makes  them  hate  me,  and  what 
is  their  hatred  but  a  proof  that  I  am  speaking  the 
truth?  —  this  is  the  occasion  and  reason  of  their  slan¬ 
der  of  me,  as  you  will  find  out  either  in  this  or  in  any 

future  inquiry.  . 

I  have  said  enough  in  my  defence  against  the  lirst 

class  of  my  accusers ;  I  turn  to  the  second  class  who 
are  headed  by  Meletus,  that  good  and  patriotic  man, 
as  he  calls  himself.  And  now  I  will  try  to  defend 
mvself  against  them:  these  new  accusers  must  also 
have  their  affidavit  read.  What  do  they  say?  Some- 
thino-  of  this  sort:  —  That  Socrates  is  a  doer  of  evil, 
and  corruptor  of  the  youth,  and  he  does  not  beliei  e 
Sin  the  gods  of  the  state,  and  has  other  new  divinities 
of  his  own.  That  is  the  sort  of  charge ;  and  now  lei 
us  examine  the  particular  counts.  He  says  that  I  am 
a  doer  of  evil,  who  corrupt  the  youth ;  but  I  say,  O 
men  of  Athens,  that  Meletus  is  a  doer  of  evil,  and  the 
evil  is  that  he  makes  a  joke  of  a  serious  matter,  and 
is  too  ready  at  bringing  other  men  to  trial  from  a 
pretended  zeal  and  interest  about  matters  m  v  hic  i 
he  really  never  had  the  smallest  interest.  Ana  the 
truth  of  this  I  will  endeavor  to  prove. 

Come  hither.  Meletus,  and  let  me  ask  a  question 
of  you.  You  think  a  great  deal  about  the  improve¬ 
ment  of  youth  ? 


APOLOGY 


111 


Yes  I  do. 

Tell  the  judges,  then,  who  is  their  improver;  for 
you  must  know,  as  you  have  taken  the  pains  to  dis¬ 
cover  their  corruptor,  and  are  citing  and  accusing  me 
before  them.  Speak,  then,  and  tell  the  judges  who 
their  improver  is.  Observe,  Meletus,  that  you  are 
silent,  and  have  nothing  to  say.  But  is  not  this  rather 
disgraceful,  and  a  very  considerable  proof  of  what  I 
was  saying,  that  you  have  no  interest  in  the  matter? 
Speak  up,  friend,  and  tell  us  who  their  improver  is. 

The  laws. 

But  that,  my  good  sir,  is  not  my  meaning.  I  want 
to  know  who  the  person  is,  who,  in  the  first  place, 
knows  the  laws. 

The  judges,  Socrates,  who  are  present  in  court. 

What,  do  you  mean  to  say,  Meletus,  that  they  are 
able  to  instruct  and  improve  youth? 

Certainly  they  are. 

What,  all  of  them,  or  some  only  and  not  others? 

All  of  them. 

By  the  goddess  Here,  that  is  good  news!  There 
are  plenty  of  improvers,  then.  And  what  do  you  say 
of  the  audience,  —  do  they  improve  them? 

Yes,  they  do. 

And  the  senators? 

Yes,  the  senators  improve  them. 

But  perhaps  the  ecclesiasts  corrupt  them?  —  or  do 
they  too  improve  them? 

They  improve  them. 

Then  every  Athenian  improves  and  elevates  them; 
all  with  the  exception  of  myself ;  and  I  alone  am  their 
corruptor?  Is  that  what  you  affirm? 

That  is  what  I  stoutly  affirm. 

I  am  very  unfortunate  if  that  is  true.  But  suppose 
I  ask  you  a  question :  W ould  you  say  that  this  also 
holds  true  in  the  case  of  horses?  Does  one  man  do 


112 


APOLOGY 


them  harm  and  all  the  world  good?  Is  not  the  exact 
opposite  of  this  true?  One  man  is  able  to  do  them 
good,  or  at  least  not  many ;  —  the  trainer  of  horses, 
that  is  to  say,  does  them  good,  and  others  who  have 
to  do  with  them  rather  injure  them?  Is  not  that  true, 
Meletus,  of  horses,  or  any  other  animals?  Yes,  cer¬ 
tainly.  Whether  you  and  Anytus  say  yes  or  no,  that 
is  no  matter.  Happy  indeed  would  be  the  condition 
of  youth  if  they  had  one  corruptor  only,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  world  were  their  improvers.  And  you, 
Meletus,  have  sufficiently  shown  that  you  never  had 
a  thought  about  the  young:  your  carelessness  is  seen 
in  your  not  caring  about  the  matters  spoken  of  in 
this  very  indictment. 

And  now,  Meletus,  I  must  ask  you  another  ques¬ 
tion  :  Which  is  better,  to  live  among  bad  citizens,  or 
among  good  ones?  Answer,  friend,  I  say;  for  that 
is  a  question  which  may  be  easily  answered.  Do  not 
the  good  do  their  neighbors  good,  and  the  bad  do  them 

evil? 

Certainly.  .  . 

And  is  there  any  one  who  would  rather  be  injured 

than  benefited  by  those  who  live  with  him  ?  Ansv  er, 
my  good  friend,  the  law  requires  you  to  answer  — 
does  any  one  like  to  be  injured? 

Certainly  not. 

And  when  you  accuse  me  of  corrupting  and  deteri¬ 
orating  the  youth,  do  you  allege  that  I  corrupt  them 
intentionally  or  unintentionally  ? 

Intentionally,  I  say. 

But  you  have  just  admitted  that  the  good  do  their 
neighbors  good,  and  the  evil  do  them  evil.  o v ,  is 
that  a  truth  which  your  superior  wisdom  has  recog¬ 
nized  thus  early  in  life,  and  am  I,  at  my  age,  in  such 
darkness  and  ignorance  as  not  to  know  that  if  a  man 
with  whom  I  have  to  live  is  corrupted  by  me,  I  am 


APOLOGY 


113 


very  likely  to  be  harmed  by  him,  and  yet  I  corrupt 
him,  and  intentionally,  too ;  —  that  is  what  you  are 
saying  and  of  that  you  will  never  persuade  me  or  any 
other  human  being.  But  either  I  do  not  corrupt 
them,  or  I  corrupt  them  unintentionally,  so  that  on 
either  view  of  the  case  you  lie.  If  my  offence  is 
unintentional,  the  law  has  no  cognizance  of  uninten¬ 
tional  offences:  you  ought  to  have  taken  me  privately, 
and  warned  and  admonished  me ;  for  if  I  had  been 
better  advised,  I  should  have  left  off  doing  what 
I  only  did  unintentionally  —  no  doubt  I  should; 
whereas  you  hated  to  converse  with  me  or  teach  me, 
but  you  indicted  me  in  this  court,  which  is  a  place  not 
of  instruction,  but  of  punishment. 

I  have  shown,  Athenians,  as  I  was  saying,  that 
Meletus  has  no  care  at  all,  great  or  small,  about  the 
matter.  But  still  I  should  like  to  know,  Meletus,  in 
what  I  am  affirmed  to  corrupt  the  young.  I  suppose 
you  mean,  as  I  infer  from  your  indictment,  that  I 
teach  them  not  to  acknowledge  the  gods  which  the 
state  acknowledges,  but  some  other  new  divinities  or 
spiritual  agencies  in  their  stead.  These  are  the  les¬ 
sons  which  corrupt  the  youth,  as  you  say. 

Yes,  that  I  say  emphatically. 

Then,  by  the  gods,  Meletus,  of  whom  we  are  speak¬ 
ing,  tell  me  and  the  court,  in  somewhat  plainer  terms, 
what  you  mean!  for  I  do  not  as  yet  understand 
whether  you  affirm  that  I  teach  others  to  acknowledge 
some  gods,  and  therefore  do  believe  in  gods,  and  am 
not  an  entire  atheist  —  this  you  do  not  lay  to  my 
charge ;  —  but  only  that  they  are  not  the  same  gods 
which  the  city  recognizes  —  the  charge  is  that  they 
are  different  gods.  Or,  do  you  mean  to  say  that  I 
am  an  atheist  simply,  and  a  teacher  of  atheism? 

I  mean  the  latter  —  that  you  are  a  complete  atheist. 

That  is  an  extraordinary  statement,  Meletus.  Why 


114 


APOLOGY 


do  you  say  that?  Do  you  mean  that  I  do  not  believe  in 
the  godhead  of  the  sun  or  moon,  which  is  the  common 
creed  of  all  men? 

I  assure  you,  judges,  that  he  does  not  believe  in 
them;  for  he  says  that  the  sun  is  stone,  and  the  moon 
earth. 

Friend  Meletus,  you  think  that  you  are  accusing 
Anaxagoras:  and  you  have  but  a  bad  opinion  of  the 
judges,  if  you  fancy  them  ignorant  to  such  a  degree 
as  not  to  know  that  these  doctrines  are  found  in  the 
books  of  Anaxagoras  the  Clazomenian,  who  is  full  of 
them.  And  these  are  the  doctrines  which  the  youth 
are  said  to  learn  of  Socrates,  when  there  are  not  un- 
frequently  exhibitions  of  them  at  the  theatre1  (price 
of  admission  one  drachma  at  the  most)  ;  and  they 
might  cheaply  purchase  them,  and  laugh  at  Socrates 
if  he  pretends  to  father  such  eccentricities.  And  so, 
Meletus,  you  really  think  that  I  do  not  believe  in  any 
god  ? 

I  swear  by  Zeus  that  you  believe  absolutely  in  none 
at  all. 

You  are  a  liar,  Meletus,  not  believed  even  by  your¬ 
self.  For  I  can  not  help  thinking,  O  men  of  Athens, 
that  Meletus  is  reckless  and  impudent,  and  that  he 
has  written  this  indictment  in  a  spirit  of  mere  wanton¬ 
ness  and  youthful  bravado.  Has  he  not  compounded 
a  riddle,  thinking  to  try  me?  He  said  to  himself :  —  I 
shall  see  whether  this  wise  Socrates  will  discover  my 
ingenious  contradiction,  or  whether  I  shall  be  able  to 
deceive  him  and  the  rest  of  them.  For  he  certainly 
does  appear  to  me  to  contradict  himself  in  the  indict¬ 
ment  as  much  as  if  he  said  that  Socrates  is  guilty  of 
not  believing  in  the  gods,  and  yet  of  believing  in  them 
—  but  this  surely  is  a  piece  of  fun. 

1  Probably  in  allusion  to  Aristophanes  who  caricatured,  and  to  Euripides 
who  borrowed  the  notions  of  Anaxagoras,  as  well  as  to  other  dramatic 
poets. 


APOLOGY 


115 


I  should  like  you,  O  men  of  Athens,  to  join  me  in 
examining  in  what  I  conceive  to  be  his  inconsistency ; 
and  do  you,  Meletus,  answer.  And  I  must  remind 
you  that  you  are  not  to  interrupt  me  if  I  speak  in  my 
accustomed  manner. 

Did  ever  man,  Meletus,  believe  in  the  existence  of 
human  things,  and  not  human  beings?  ...  I  wish, 
men  of  Athens,  that  he  would  answer,  and  not  be 
always  trying  to  get  up  an  interruption.  Did  ever 
any  man  believe  in  horsemanship,  and  not  in  horses? 
or  in  flute-playing,  and  not  in  flute-players?  No,  my 
friend ;  I  will  answer  to  you  and  to  the  court,  as  you 
refuse  to  answer  for  yourself.  There  is  no  man  who 
ever  did.  But  now  please  to  answer  the  next  ques¬ 
tion  :  Can  a  man  believe  in  spiritual  and  divine  agen¬ 
cies,  and  not  in  spirits  or  demigods? 

He  can  not. 

I  am  glad  that  I  have  extracted  that  answer,  by  the 
assistance  of  the  court;  nevertheless  you  swear  in  the 
indictment  that  I  teach  and  believe  in  divine  or  spir¬ 
itual  agencies  (new  or  old,  no  matter  for  that)  ;  at 
any  rate,  I  believe  in  spiritual  agencies,  as  you  say 
and  swear  in  the  affidavit;  but  if  I  believe  in  divine 
beings,  I  must  believe  in  spirits  or  demigods ;  —  is  not 
that  true?  Yes,  that  is  true,  for  I  may  assume  that 
your  silence  gives  assent  to  that.  Now  what  are 
spirits  or  demigods?  are  they  not  either  gods  or  the 
sons  of  gods?  Is  that  true? 

Yes,  that  is  true. 

But  this  is  just  the  ingenious  riddle  of  which  I  was 
speaking:  the  demigods  or  spirits  are  gods,  and  you 
say  first  that  I  don’t  believe  in  gods,  and  then  again 
that  I  do  believe  in  gods ;  that  is,  if  I  believe  in  demi¬ 
gods.  For  if  the  demigods  are  the  illegitimate  sons 
of  gods,  whether  by  the  nymphs  or  by  any  other  moth¬ 
ers,  as  is  thought,  that,  as  all  men  will  allow,  neces- 


116 


APOLOGY 


sarily  implies  the  existence  of  their  parents.  You 
might  as  well  affirm  the  existence  of  mules,  and  deny 
that  of  horses  and  asses.  Such  nonsense,  Meletus, 
could  only  have  been  intended  by  you  as  a  trial  of 
me.  You  have  put  this  into  the  indictment  because 
you  had  nothing  real  of  which  to  accuse  me.  But  no 
one  who  has  a  particle  of  understanding  will  ever  be 
convinced  by  you  that  the  same  men  can  believe  in 
divine  and  superhuman  things,  and  yet  not  believe 
that  there  are  gods  and  demigods  and  heroes. 

I  have  said  enough  in  answer  to  the  charge  of 
Meletus:  any  elaborate  defence  is  unnecessary;  but 
as  I  was  saying  before,  I  certainly  have  many  ene¬ 
mies,  and  this  is  what  will  be  my  destruction  if  I  am 
destroyed ;  of  that  I  am  certain ;  —  not  Meletus,  nor 
yet  Anytus,  but  the  envy  and  detraction  of  the  world, 
which  has  been  the  death  of  many  good  men,  and  will 
probably  be  the  death  of  many  more;  there  is  no 
danger  of  my  being  the  last  of  them. 

Some  one  will  say:  And  are  you  not  ashamed, 
Socrates,  of  a  course  of  life  which  is  likely  to  bring 
you  to  an  untimely  end?  To  him  X  may  faiily  an¬ 
swer:  There  you  are  mistaken:  a  man  who  is  good 
for  anything  ought  not  to  calculate  the  chance  of 
living  or  dying;  he  ought  only  to  consider  whether 
in  doing  anything  he  is  doing  right  or  wrong  —  act¬ 
ing  the  part  of  a  good  man  or  of  a  bad.  Whereas, 
according  to  your  view,  the  heroes  who  fell  at  Troy 
were  not  good  for  much,  and  the  son  of  Thetis  above 
all,  who  altogether  despised  danger  in  comparison 
with  disgrace;  and  when  his  goddess  mother  said  to 
him,  in  his  eagerness  to  slay  Hector,  that  if  he 
avenged  his  companion  Patroclus,  and  slew  Hector, 
he  would  die  himself  — 44  Fate,  as  she  said,  waits 
upon  you  next  after  Hector;”  he,  hearing  this,  ut¬ 
terly  despised  danger  and  death,  and  instead  of  fear- 


APOLOGY 


117 


in g  them,  feared  rather  to  live  in  dishonor,  and  not 
to  avenge  his  friend.  “  Let  me  die  next,”  he  replies, 
“  and  be  avenged  of  my  enemy,  rather  than  abide  here 
by  the  beaked  ships,  a  scorn  and  a  burden  of  the 
earth.”  Had  Achilles  any  thought  of  death  and 
danger?  For  wherever  a  man’s  place  is,  whether  the 
place  which  he  has  chosen  or  that  in  which  he  has 
been  placed  by  a  commander,  there  he  ought  to  re¬ 
main  in  the  hour  of  danger;  he  should  not  think  of 
death  or  of  anything,  but  of  disgrace.  And  this,  O 
men  of  Athens,  is  a  true  saying. 

^Strange,  indeed,  would  be  my  conduct,  O  men  of 
Athens,  if  I  who,  when  I  was  ordered  by  the  generals 
whom  you  chose  to  command  me  at  Potidaea  and 
Amphipolis  and  Delium,  remained  where  they  placed 
me,  like  any  other  man,  facing  death;  if,  I  say,  now, 
when,  as  I  conceive  and  imagine,  God  orders  me  to 
fulfil  the  philosopher’s  mission  of  searching  into  my¬ 
self  and  other  men,  I  were  to  desert  my  post  through 
fear  of  death,  or  any  other  fear;  that  would  indeed 
be  strange,  and  I  might  justly  be  arraigned  in  court 
for  denying  the  existence  of  the  gods,  if  I  disobeyed 
the  oracle  because  I  was  afraid  of  death:  then  I 
should  be  fancying  that  I  was  wise  when  I  was  not 
wise.  For  this  fear  of  death  is  indeed  the  pretence 
of  wisdom,  and  not  real  wisdom,  being  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  knowing  the  unknown;  since  no  one  knows 
whether  death,  which  they  in  their  fear  apprehend  to 
be  the  greatest  evil,  may  not  be  the  greatest  good. 
Is  there  not  here  conceit  of  knowledge,  which  is  a 
disgraceful  sort  of  ignorance?  And  this  is  the  point 
in  which,  as  I  think,  I  am  superior  to  men  in  general, 
and  in  which  I  might  perhaps  fancy  myself  wiser  than 
other  men,  —  that  whereas  I  know  but  little  of  the 
world  below,  I  do  not  suppose  that  I  know:  but  I 
do  know  that  injustice  and  disobedience  to  a  better, 


/ 


118 


APOLOGY 


whether  God  or  man,  is  evil  and  dishonorable,  and 
I  will  never  fear  or  avoid  a  possible  good  rather  than 
a  certain  evil.  And  therefore  if  you  let  me  go  now, 
and  reject  the  counsels  of  Anytus,  who  said  that  if 
I  were  not  put  to  death  I  ought  not  to  have  been  pros¬ 
ecuted,  and  that  if  I  escape  now,  your  sons  will  all 
be  utterly  ruined  by  listening  to  my  words  —  if  you 
say  to  me,  Socrates,  this  time  we  will  not  mind  Any¬ 
tus,  and  will  let  you  off,  but  upon  one  condition,  that 
you  are  not  to  inquire  and  speculate  in  this  way  any 
more,  and  that  if  you  are  caught  doing  this  again 
you  shall  die ;  —  if  this  was  the  condition  on  which  you 
let  me  go,  I  should  reply:  Men  of  Athens,  I  honor 
and  love  you ;  but  I  shall  obey  God  rather  than  you, 
and  while  I  have  life  and  strength  I  shall  never  cease 
from  the  practice  and  teaching  of  philosophy,  exhort¬ 
ing  any  one  whom  I  meet  after  my  manner,  and  con¬ 
vincing  him,  saying:  O  my  friend,  why  do  you,  who 
are  a  citizen  of  the  great  and  mighty  and  wise  city  of 
Athens,  care  so  much  about  laying  up  the  greatest 
amount  of  money  and  honor  and  reputation,  and  so 
little  about  wisdom  and  truth  and  the  greatest  im¬ 
provement  of  the  soul,  which  you  never  regard  or 
heed  at  all?  Are  you  not  ashamed  of  this?  And  if 
the  person  with  whom  I  am  arguing,  says:  Yes,  but 
I  do  care ;  I  do  not  depart  or  let  him  go  at  once ;  I 
interrogate  and  examine  and  cross-examine  him,  and 
if  I  think  that  he  has  no  virtue,  but  only  says  that 
he  has,  I  reproach  him  with  undervaluing  the  greater, 
and  overvaluing  the  less.  And  this  I  should  say  to 
every  one  whom  I  meet,  young  and  old,  citizen  and 
alien,  but  especially  to  the  citizens,  inasmuch  as  they 
are  my  brethren.  For  this  is  the  command  to  God, 
as  I  would  have  you  know;  and  I  believe  that  to  this 
day  no  greater  good  has  ever  happened  in  the  state 
than  my  service  to  the  God.  For  I  do  nothing  but 


APOLOGY 


119 


' 

go  about  persuading  you  all,  old  and  young  alike, 
not  to  take  thought  for  your  persons  or  your  prop¬ 
erties,  but  first  and  chiefly  to  care  about  the  greatest 
improvement  of  the  soul.  I  tell  you  that  virtue  is 
not  given  by  money,  but  that  from  virtue  come  money 
and  every  other  good  of  man,  public  as  well  as  pri¬ 
vate.  This  is  my  teaching,  and  if  this  is  the  doctrine 
which  corrupts  the  youth,  my  influence  is  ruinous 
indeed.  But  if  any  one  says  that  this  is  not  my  teach¬ 
ing,  he  is  speaking  an  untruth.  Wherefore,  O  men 
of  Athens,  I  say  to  you,  do  as  Anytus  bids  or  not  as 
Anytus  bids,  and  either  acquit  me  or  not;  but  what¬ 
ever  you  do,  know  that  I  shall  never  alter  my  ways, 
not  even  if  I  have  to  die  many  times. 

Men  of  Athens,  do  not  interrupt,  but  hear  me; 
there  was  an  agreement  between  us  that  you  should 
hear  me  out.  And  I  think  that  what  I  am  going  to 
say  will  do  you  good:  for  I  have  something  more  to 
say,  at  which  you  may  be  inclined  to  cry  out;  but 
I  beg  that  you  will  not  do  this.  I  would  have  you 
know,  that  if  you  kill  such  an  one  as  I  am,  you  will 
injure  yourselves  more  than  you  will  injure  me.  Me- 
letus  and  Anytus  will  not  injure  me:  they  can  not; 
for  it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  a  bad  man 
should  injure  a  better  than  himself.  I  do  not  deny 
that  he  may,  perhaps,  kill  him,  or  drive  him  into  exile, 
or  deprive  him  of  civil  rights;  and  he  may  imagine, 
and  others  may  imagine,  that  he  is  doing  him  a  great 
injury:  but  in  that  I  do  not  agree  with  him;  for  the 
evil  of  doing  as  Anytus  is  doing  —  of  unjustly  taking 
away  another  man’s  life  —  is  greater  far.  And  now, 
Athenians,  I  am  not  going  to  argue  for  my  own  sake, 
as  you  may  think,  but  for  yours,  that  you  may  not 
sin  against  the  God,  or  lightly  reject  his  boon  by  con¬ 
demning  me.  For  if  you  kill  me  you  will  not  easily 
find  another  like  me,  who,  if  I  may  use  such  a  ludi- 


120 


APOLOGY 


crous  figure  of  speech,  am  a  sort  of  gadfly,  given  to 
the  state  by  the  God;  and  the  state  is  like  a  great 
and  noble  steed  who  is  tardy  in  his  motions  owing  to 
his  very  size,  and  requires  to  be  stirred  into  life.  I 
am  that  gadfly  which  God  has  given  the  state,  and 
all  day  long  and  in  all  places  am  always  fastening 
upon  you,  arousing  and  persuading  and  reproaching 
you.  And  as  you  will  not  easily  find  another  like  me, 
I  would  advise  you  to  spare  me.  I  dare  say  that  you 
may  feel  irritated  at  being  suddenly  awakened  when 
you  are  caught  napping;  and  you  may  think  that  if 
you  were  to  strike  me  dead  as  Anytus  advises,  which 
-  :  you  easily  might,  then  you  would  sleep  on  for  the 
\  remainder  of  your  lives,  unless  God  in  his  care  of  you 
gives  you  another  gadfly.  And  that  I  am  given  to 
you  by  God  is  proved  by  this :  —  that  if  I  had  been 
like  other  men,  I  should  not  have  neglected  all  my 
own  concerns  or  patiently  seen  the  neglect  of  them 
during  all  these  years,  and  have  been  doing  yours, 
coming  to  you  individually  like  a  father  or  elder 
brother,  exhorting  you  to  regard  virtue;  this,  I  say, 
would  not  be  like  human  nature.  And  had  I  gained 
anything,  or  if  my  exhortations  had  been  paid,  there 
would  have  been  some  sense  in  that ;  but  now,  as  you 
will  perceive,  not  even  the  impudence  of  my  accusers 
dares  to  say  that  I  have  ever  exacted  or  sought  pay 
of  any  one;  they  have  no  witness  of  that.  And  I 
have  a  witness  of  the  truth  of  what  I  say;  my  pov¬ 
erty  is  a  sufficient  witness. 

Some  one  may  wonder  why  I  go  about  in  private 
giving  advice  and  busying  myself  with  the  concerns 
of  others,  but  do  not  venture  to  come  forward  in  pub¬ 
lic  and  advise  the  state.  I  will  tell  you  the  reason 
of  this.  You  have  often  heard  me  speak  of  an  oracle 
or  sign  which  comes  to  me,  and  is  the  divinity  which 
Meletus  ridicules  in  the  indictment.  This  sign  I  have 


APOLOGY 


121 


had  ever  since  I  was  a  child.  The  sign  is  a  voice 
which  comes  to  me  and  always  forbids  me  to  do  some-  * 
thing  which  I  am  going  to  do,  but  never  commands 
me  to  do  anything,  and  this  is  what  stands  in  the  way 
of  my  being  a  politician.  And  rightly,  as  I  think. 
For  I  am  certain,  O  men  of  Athens,  that  if  I  had 
engaged  in  politics,  I  should  have  perished  long  ago, 
and  done  no  good  either  to  you  or  to  myself.  And 
don’t  be  offended  at  my  telling  you  the  truth :  for  the 
truth  is,  that  no  man  who  goes  to  war  with  you  or 
any  other  multitude,  honestly  struggling  against  the 
commission  of  unrighteousness  and  wrong  in  the  state, 
will  save  his  life;  he  who  will  really  fight  for  the 
right,  if  he  would  live  even  for  a  little  while,  must  have 
a  private  station  and  not  a  public  one. 

^  I  can  give  you  as  proofs  of  this,  not  words  only, 
but  deeds,  which  you  value  more  than  words.  Let 
me  tell  you  a  passage  of  my  own  life  which  will  prove 
to  you  that  I  should  never  have  yielded  to  injustice 
from  any  fear  of  death,  and  that  if  I  had  not  yielded 
I  should  have  died  at  once.  I  will  tell  you  a  story  — 
tasteless  perhaps  and  commonplace,  but  nevertheless 
true.  The  only  office  of  state  which  I  ever  held,  O 
men  of  Athens,  was  that  of  senator:  the  tribe  Anti- 
ochis,  which  is  my  tribe,  had  the  presidency  at  the 
trial  of  the  generals  who  had  not  taken  up  the  bodies 
of  the  slain  after  the  battle  of  Arginusae;  and  you 
proposed  to  try  them  all  together,  which  was  illegal, 
as  you  all  thought  afterwards;  but  at  the  time  I  was 
the  only  one  of  the  Prytanes  who  was  opposed  to  the 
illegality,  and  I  gave  my  vote  against  you ;  and  when 
the  orators  threatened  to  impeach  and  arrest  me,  and 
have  me  taken  away,  and  you  called  and  shouted,  I 
made  up  my  mind  that  I  would  run  the  risk,  having 
law  and  justice  with  me,  rather  than  take  part  in  your 
injustice  because  I  feared  imprisonment  and  death. 


/ 


122 


APOLOGY 


This  happened  in  the  days  of  the  democracy.  But 
when  the  oligarchy  of  the  Thirty  was  in  power,  they 
sent  for  me  and  four  others  into  the  rotunda,  and 
bade  us  bring  Leon  the  Salaminian  from  Salamis, 
as  they  wanted  to  execute  him.  This  was  a  specimen 
of  the  sort  of  commands  which  they  were  always  giv¬ 
ing  with  the  view  of  implicating  as  many  as  possible 
in  their  crimes ;  and  then  I  showed,  not  in  word  only 
but  in  deed,  that,  if  I  may  be  allowed  to  use  such  an 
expression,  I  cared  not  a  straw  for  death,  and  that  my 
only  fear  was  the  fear  of  doing  an  unrighteous  or 
unholy  thing.  For  the  strong  arm  of  that  oppressive 
power  did  not  frighten  me  into  doing  wrong;  and 
when  we  came  out  of  the  rotunda  the  other  four  went 
to  Salamis  and  fetched  Leon,  but  I  went  quietly 
home.  For  which  I  might  have  lost  my  life,  had  not 
the  power  of  the  Thirty  shortly  afterwards  come  to 
an  end.  And  to  this  many  will  witness. 

Now  do  you  really  imagine  that  I  could  have  sur¬ 
vived  all  these  years,  if  I  had  led  a  public  life,  sup¬ 
posing  that  like  a  good  man  I  had  always  supported 
the  right  and  had  made  justice,  as  I  ought,  the  first 
thing?  No  indeed,  men  of  Athens,  neither  I  nor  any 
other.  But  I  have  been  always  the  same  in  all  my 
actions,  public  as  well  as  private,  and  never  have  I 
yielded  any  base  compliance  to  those  who  are  slan¬ 
derously  termed  my  disciples,  or  to  any  other.  For 
the  truth  is  that  I  have  no  regular  disciples:  but  if 
any  one  likes  to  come  and  hear  me  while  I  am  pur¬ 
suing  my  mission,  whether  he  be  young  or  old,  he  may 
freely  come.  Nor  do  I  converse  with  those  who  pay 
only,  and  not  with  those  who  do  not  pay;  but  any 
one,  whether  he  be  rich  or  poor,  may  ask  and  answer 
me  and  listen  to  my  words ;  and  whether  he  turns  out 
to  be  a  bad  man  or  a  good  one,  that  can  not  be  justly 
laid  to  my  charge,  as  I  never  taught  him  anything. 


APOLOGY 


123 


And  if  any  one  says  that  he  has  ever  learned  or  heard 
anything  from  me  in  private  which  all  the  world  has 
not  heard,  I  should  like  you  to  know  that  he  is  speak¬ 
ing  an  untruth. 

But  I  shall  be  asked,  Why  do  people  delight  in 
continually  conversing  with  you?  I  have  told  you 
already,  Athenians,  the  whole  truth  about  this:  they 
like  to  hear  the  cross-examination  of  the  pretenders 
to  wisdom;  there  is  amusement  in  this.  And  this  is 
a  duty  which  the  God  has  imposed  upon  me,  as  I  am 
assured  by  oracles,  visions,  and  in  every  sort  of  way 
in  which  the  will  of  divine  power  was  ever  signified 
to  any  one.  This  is  true,  O  Athenians ;  or,  if  not  true, 
would  be  soon  refuted.  For  if  I  am  really  corrupting 
the  youth,  and  have  corrupted  some  of  them  already, 
those  of  them  who  have  grown  up  and  have  become 
sensible  that  I  gave  them  bad  advice  in  the  days  of 
their  youth  should  come  forward  as  accusers  and  take 
their  revenge ;  and  if  they  do  not  like  to  come  them¬ 
selves,  some  of  their  relatives,  fathers,  brothers,  or 
other  kinsmen,  should  say  what  evil  their  families  suf¬ 
fered  at  my  hands.  Now  is  their  time.  Many  of 
them  I  see  in  the  court.  There  is  Crito,  who  is  of  the 
same  age  and  of  the  same  deme  with  myself,  and  there 
is  Critobulus  his  son,  whom  I  also  see.  Then  again 
there  is  Lysanias  of  Sphettus,  who  is  the  father  of 
Aeschines  —  he  is  present;  and  also  there  is  Anti¬ 
phon  of  Cephisus,  who  is  the  father  of  Epigenes;  and 
there  are  the  brothers  of  several  who  have  associated 
with  me.  There  is  Nicostratus  the  son  of  Theosdo- 
tides,  and  the  brother  of  Theodotus  (now  Theodotus 
himself  is  dead,  and  therefore  he,  at  any  rate,  will 
not  seek  to  stop  him)  ;  and  there  is  Paralus  the  son 
of  Demodocus,  who  had  a  brother  Theages;  and 
Adeimantus  the  son  of  Ariston,  whose  brother  Plato 
is  present;  and  Aeantodorus,  who  is  the  brother  of 


124 


APOLOGY 


Apollodorus,  whom  I  also  see.  I  might  mention  a 
great  many  others,  any  of  whom  Meletus  should  have 
produced  as  witnesses  in  the  course  of  his  speech ;  and 
let  him  still  produce  them,  if  he  has  forgotten  —  I 
will  make  way  for  him.  And  let  him  say,  if  he  has 
any  testimony  of  the  sort  which  he  can  produce.  Nay, 
Athenians,  the  very  opposite  is  the  truth.  For  all 
these  are  ready  to  witness  on  behalf  of  the  corruptor, 
of  the  destroyer  of  their  kindred,  as  Meletus  and 
Anytus  call  me;  not  the  corrupted  youth  only  — 
there  might  have  been  a  motive  for  that  —  but  their 
uncorrupted  elder  relatives.  Why  should  they  too 
support  me  with  their  testimony?  Why,  indeed,  ex¬ 
cept  for  the  sake  of  truth  and  justice,  and  because 
they  know  that  I  am  speaking  the  truth,  and  that 
Meletus  is  lying. 

Well,  Athenians,  this  and  the  like  of  this  is  nearly 
all  the  defence  which  I  have  to  offer.  Yet  a  word 
more.  Perhaps  there  may  be  some  one  who  is  offended 
at  me,  when  he  calls  to  mind  how  he  himself  on  a 
similar,  or  even  a  less  serious  occasion,  had  recourse 
to  prayers  and  supplications  with  many  tears,  and 
how  he  produced  his  children  in  court,  which  was  a 
moving  spectacle,  together  with  a  posse  of  his  rela¬ 
tions  and  friends;  whereas  I,  who  am  probably  in 
danger  of  my  life,  will  do  none  of  these  things.  Per¬ 
haps  this  may  come  into  his  mind,  and  he  may  be  set 
against  me,  and  vote  in  anger  because  he  is  displeased 
at  this.  Now  if  there  be  such  a  person  among  von, 
which  I  am  far  from  affirming,  I  may  fairly  reply 
to  him:  My  friend,  I  am  a  man,  and  like  other  men, 
a  creature  of  flesh  and  blood,  and  not  of  wood  or 
stone,  as  Homer  says;  and  I  have  a  family,  yes,  and 
sons,  O  Athenians,  three  in  number,  one  of  whom  is 
growing  up,  and  the  two  others  are  still  young;  and 
yet  I  will  not  bring  any  of  them  hither  in  order  to 


APOLOGY 


125 


petition  you  for  an  acquittal.  And  why  not?  Not 
from  any  self-will  or  disregard  of  you.  Whether  I 
am  or  am  not  afraid  of  death  is  another  question,  of 
which  I  will  not  now  speak.  But  my  reason  simply 
is,  that  I  feel  such  conduct  to  be  discreditable  to  my¬ 
self,  and  you,  and  the  whole  state.  One  who  has 
reached  my  years,  and  who  has  a  name  for  wisdom, 
whether  deserved  or  not,  ought  not  to  demean  him¬ 
self.  At  any  rate,  the  world  has  decided  that  Soc¬ 
rates  is  in  some  way  superior  to  other  men.  And  if 
those  among  you  who  are  said  to  be  superior  in  wisdom 
and  courage,  and  any  other  virtue,  demean  themselves 
in  this  way,  how  shameful  is  their  conduct!  I  have 
seen  men  of  reputation,  when  they  have  been  con¬ 
demned,  behaving  in  the  strangest  manner:  they 
seemed  to  fancy  that  they  were  going  to  suffer  some¬ 
thing  dreadful  if  they  died,  and  that  they  could  be 
immortal  if  you  only  allowed  them  to  live;  and  I 
think  that  they  were  a  dishonor  to  the  state,  and  that 
any  stranger  coming  in  would  say  of  them  that  the 
most  eminent  men  of  Athens,  to  whom  the  Athenians 
themselves  give  honor  and  command,  are  no  better 
than  women.  And  I  say  that  these  things  ought  not 
to  be  done  by  those  of  us  who  are  of  reputation ;  and 
if  they  are  done,  you  ought  not  to  permit  them;  you 
ought  rather  to  show  that  you  are  more  inclined  to 
condemn,  not  the  man  who  is  quiet,  but  the  man  who 
gets  up  a  doleful  scene,  and  makes  the  city  ridiculous. 

But,  setting  aside  the  question  of  dishonor,  there 
seems  to  be  something  wrong  in  petitioning  a  judge, 
and  thus  procuring  an  acquittal  instead  of  informing 
and  convincing  him.  For  his  duty  is,  not  to  make  a 
present  of  justice,  but  to  give  judgment;  and  he  has 
sworn  that  he  will  judge  according  to  the  laws  and 
not  according  to  his  own  good  pleasure;  and  neither 
he  nor  we  should  get  into  the  habit  of  perjuring  our- 


126 


APOLOGY 


selves  —  there  can  be  no  piety  in  that.  Do  not  then 
require  me  to  do  what  I  consider  dishonorable  and 
impious  and  wrong,  especially  now,  when  I  am  being 
tried  for  impiety  on  the  indictment  of  Meletus.  For 
if,  O  men  of  Athens,  by  force  of  persuasion  and  en¬ 
treaty,  I  could  overpower  your  oaths,  then  I  should 
be  teaching  you  to  believe  that  there  are  no  gods,  and 
convict  myself,  in  my  own  defence,  of  not  believing 
in  them.  But  that  is  not  the  case;  for  I  do  believe 
that  there  are  gods,  and  in  a  far  higher  sense  than  that 
in  which  any  of  my  accusers  believe  in  them.  And 
to  you  and  to  God  I  commit  my  cause,  to  be  deter¬ 
mined  by  you  as  is  best  for  you  and  me. 


There  are  many  reasons  why  I  am  not  grieved, 
O  men  of  Athens,  at  the  vote  of  condemnation.  I 
expected  this,  and  am  only  surprised  that  the  votes 
are  so  nearly  equal;  for  I  had  thought  that  the  ma¬ 
jority  against  me  would  have  been  far  larger;  but 
now,  had  thirty  votes  gone  over  to  the  other  side,  I 
should  have  been  acquitted.  And  I  may  say  that  I 
have  escaped  Meletus.  And  I  may  say  more;  for 
without  the  assistance  of  Anytus  and  Lycon,  he  would 
not  have  had  a  fifth  part  of  the  votes,  as  the  law  re¬ 
quires,  in  which  case  he  would  have  incurred  a  fine 
of  a  thousand  drachmae,  as  is  evident. 

And  so  he  proposes  death  as  the  penalty.  And 
what  shall  I  propose  on  my  part,  O  men  of  Athens? 
Clearly  that  which  is  my  due.  And  what  is  that  which 
I  ought  to  pay  or  to  receive?  What  shall  be  done 
to  the  man  who  has  never  had  the  wit  to  be  idle  during 
his  whole  life ;  but  has  been  careless  of  what  the  many 
care  about  —  wealth,  and  family  interests,  and  mili¬ 
tary  offices,  and  speaking  in  the  assembly,  and  mag¬ 
istracies,  and  plots,  and  parties.  Reflecting  that  J 


APOLOGY 


127 


was  really  too  honest  a  man  to  follow  in  this  way 
and  live,  I  did  not  go  where  I  could  do  no  good  to  you 
or  to  myself ;  but  where  I  could  do  the  greatest  good 
privately  to  every  one  of  you,  thither  I  went,  and 
sought  to  persuade  every  man  among  you,  that  he 
must  look  to  himself,  and  seek  virtue  and  wisdom 
before  he  looks  to  his  private  interests,  and  look  to 
the  state  before  he  looks  to  the  interests  of  the  state; 
and  that  this  should  be  the  order  which  he  observes  in 
all  his  actions.  What  shall  be  done  to  such  an  one? 
Doubtless  some  good  thing,  O  men  of  Athens,  if  he 
has  his  reward;  and  the  good  should  be  of  a  kind 
suitable  to  him.  What  would  be  a  reward  suitable 
to  a  poor  man  who  is  your  benefactor,  who  desires 
leisure  that  he  may  instruct  you?  There  can  be  no 
more  fitting  reward  than  maintenance  in  the  Pry- 
taneum,  O  men  of  Athens,  a  reward  which  he  deserves 
far  more  than  the  citizen  who  has  won  the  prize  at 
Olympia  in  the  horse  or  chariot  race,  whether  the 
chariots  were  drawn  by  two  horses  or  by  many.  For 
I  am  in  want,  and  he  has  enough;  and  he  only  gives 
you  the  appearance  of  happiness,  and  I  give  you  the 
reality.  And  if  I  am  to  estimate  the  penalty  justly, 
I  say  that  maintenance  in  the  Prytaneum  is  the  just 
return. 

Perhaps  you  may  think  that  I  am  braving  you  in 
saying  this,  as  in  what  I  said  before  about  the  tears 
and  prayers.  But  that  is  not  the  case.  I  speak  rather 
because  I  am  convinced  that  I  never  intentionally 
wronged  any  one,  although  I  can  not  convince  you  of 
that  —  for  we  have  had  a  short  conversation  only; 
but  if  there  were  a  law  at  Athens,  such  as  there  is  in 
other  cities,  that  a  capital  cause  should  not  be  decided 
in  one  day,  then  I  believe  that  I  should  have  con¬ 
vinced  you ;  but  now  tbe  time  is  too  short.  I  can  not 
in  a  moment  refute  great  slanders;  and,  as  I  am  con- 


128 


APOLOGY 


vinced  that  I  never  wronged  another,  I  will  assuredly 
not  wrong  myself.  I  will  not  say  of  myself  that  I 
deserve  any  evil,  or  propose  any  penalty.  Why 
should  I?  Because  I  am  afraid  of  the  penalty  of 
death  which  Meletus  proposes?  When  I  do  not  know 
whether  death  is  a  good  or  an  evil,  why  should  I  pro¬ 
pose  a  penalty  which  would  certainly  be  an  evil? 
Shall  I  say  imprisonment?  And  why  should  I  live 
in  prison,  and  be  the  slave  of  the  magistrates  of  the 
year  —  of  the  eleven?  Or  shall  the  penalty  be  a  fine, 
and  imprisonment  until  the  fine  is  paid?  .  There  is 
the  same  objection.  I  should  have  to  lie  in  prison, 
for  money  I  have  none,  and  can  not  pay.  And  if  I 
say  exile  ( and  this  may  possibly  be  the  penalty  which 
you  will  affix),  I  must  indeed  be  blinded  by  the  love 
of  life,  if  I  do  not  consider  that  when  you,  who  are 
my  own  citizens,  can  not  endure  my  discourses  and 
words,  and  have  found  them  so  grievous  and  odious 
that  you  would  fain  have  done  with  them,  others  are 
likely  to  endure  me.  No  indeed,  men  of  Athens,  that 
is  not  very  likely.  And  what  a  life  should  I  lead,  at 
my  age,  wandering  from  city  to  city,  living  in  ever- 
changing  exile,  and  always  being  driven  out!  For 
I  am  quite  sure  that  into  whatever  place  I  go,  as 
here  so  also  there,  the  young  men  will  come  to  me; 
and  if  I  drive  them  away,  their  elders  will  drive  me 
out  at  their  desire;  and  if  I  let  them  come,  their 
fathers  and  friends  will  drive  me  out  for  their  sakes. 

Some  one  will  say:  Yes,  Socrates,  but  can  not  you 
hold  your  tongue,  and  then  you  may  go  into  a  foreign 
city,  and  no  one  will  interfere  with  you?  Now  I  have 
great  difficulty  in  making  you  understand  my  answer 
to  this.  For  if  I  tell  you  that  this  would  be  a  dis¬ 
obedience  to  a  divine  command,  and  therefore  that  I 
can  not  hold  my  tongue,  you  will  not  believe  that  I 
am  serious;  and  if  I  say  again  that  the  greatest  good 


APOLOGY 


129 


of  man  is  daily  to  converse  about  virtue,  and  all  that 
concerning  which  you  hear  me  examining  myself  and 
others,  and  that  the  life  which  is  unexamined  is  not 
worth  living  —  that  you  are  still  less  likely  to  believe. 
And  yet  what  I  say  is  true,  although  a  thing  of  which 
it  is  hard  for  me  to  persuade  you.  Moreover,  I  am 
not  accustomed  to  think  that  I  deserve  any  punish¬ 
ment.  Had  I  money  I  might  have  proposed  to  give 
you  what  I  had,  and  have  been  none  the  worse.  But 
you  see  that  I  have  none,  and  can  only  ask  you  to 
proportion  the  fine  to  my  means.  However,  I  think 
that  I  could  afford  a  mina,  and  therefore  I  propose 
that  penalty:  Plato,  Crito,  Critobulus,  and  Apollo- 
dorus,  my  friends  here,  bid  me  say  thirty  minae,  and 
they  will  be  the  sureties.  Well,  then,  say  thirty 
minae,  let  that  be  the  penalty;  for  that  they  will  be 
ample  security  to  you. 


Not  much  time  will  be  gained,  O  Athenians,  in 
return  for  the  evil  name  which  you  will  get  from  the 
detractors  of  the  city,  who  will  say  that  you  killed 
Socrates,  a  wise  man;  for  they  will  call  me  wise  even 
although  I  am  not  wise  when  they  want  to  reproach 
you.  If  you  had  waited  a  little  while,  your  desire 
would  have  been  fulfilled  in  the  course  of  nature. 
For  I  am  far  advanced  in  years,  as  you  may  perceive, 
and  not  far  from  death.  I  am  speaking  now  only 
to  those  of  you  who  have  condemned  me  to  death. 
And  I  have  another  thing  to  say  to  them:  You  think 
that  I  was  convicted  through  deficiency  of  words  — 
I  mean,  that  if  I  had  thought  fit  to  leave  nothing 
undone,  nothing  unsaid,  I  might  have  gained  an 
acquittal.  Not  so;  the  deficiency  which  led  to  my 
conviction  was  not  of  words  —  certainly  not.  But  I 
had  not  the  boldness  or  impudence  or  inclination  to 


130 


APOLOGY 


address  you  as  you  would  have  liked  me  to  address 
you,  weeping  and  wailing  and  lamenting,  and  saying 
and  doing  many  things  which  you  have  been  accus¬ 
tomed  to  hear  from  others,  and  which,  as  I  say,  are 
unworthy  of  me.  But  I  thought  that  I  ought  not  to 
do  anything  common  or  mean  in  the  hour  of  danger: 
nor  do  I  now  repent  of  the  manner  of  my  defence, 
and  I  would  rather  die  having  spoken  after  my  man¬ 
ner,  than  speak  in  your  manner  and  live.  For  neither 
in  war  nor  yet  at  law  ought  any  man  to  use  every 
way  of  escaping  death.  For  often  in  battle  there  is 
no  doubt  that  if  a  man  will  throw  away  his  arms,  and 
fall  on  his  knees  before  his  pursuers,  he  may  escape 
death;  and  in  other  dangers  there  are  other  ways  of 
escaping  death,  if  a  man  is  willing  to  say  and  do 
anything.  The  difficulty,  my  friends,  is  not  in  avoid¬ 
ing  death,  but  in  avoiding  unrighteousness;  for  that 
runs  faster  than  death.  I  am  old  and  move  slowly, 
and  the  slower  runner  has  overtaken  me,  and  my 
accusers  are  keen  and  quick,  and  the  faster  runner, 
who  is  unrighteousness,  has  overtaken  them.  And 
now  I  depart  hence  condemned  by  you  to  suffer  the 
penalty  of  death,  and  they  too  go  their  ways  con¬ 
demned  by  the  truth  to  suffer  the  penalty  of  villainy 
and  wrong;  and  I  must  abide  by  my  award  — let 
them  abide  by  theirs.  I  suppose  that  these  things 
may  be  regarded  as  fated,  —  and  I  think  that  they 
are  well. 

And  now,  O  men  who  have  condemned  me,  I  would 
fain  prophesy  to  you;  for  I  am  about  to  die,  and 
that  is  the  hour  in  which  men  are  gifted  with  pro¬ 
phetic  power.  And  I  prophesy  to  you  who  are  my 
murderers,  that  immediately  after  my  death  punish¬ 
ment  far  heavier  than  you  have  inflicted  on  me  will 
surely  await  you.  Me  you  have  killed  because  you 
wanted  to  escape  the  accuser,  and  not  to  give  an  ac- 


APOLOGY 


131 


count  of  your  lives.  But  that  will  not  be  as  you  sup¬ 
pose:  far  otherwise.  For  I  say  that  there  will  be 
more  accusers  of  you  than  there  are  now;  accusers 
whom  hitherto  I  have  restrained:  and  as  they  are 
younger  they  will  be  more  severe  with  you,  and  you 
will  be  more  offended  at  them.  For  if  you  think  that 
by  killing  men  you  can  avoid  the  accuser  censuring 
your  lives,  you  are  mistaken;  that  is  not  a  way  of 
escape  which  is  either  possible  or  honorable ;  the  easi¬ 
est  and  the  noblest  way  is  not  to  be  crushing  others, 
but  to  be  improving  yourselves.  This  is  the  prophecy 
which  I  utter  before  my  departure  to  the  judges  who 
have  condemned  me. 

Friends,  who  would  have  acquitted  me,  I  would 
like  also  to  talk  with  you  about  this  thing  which  has 
happened,  while  the  magistrates  are  busy,  and  before 
I  go  to  the  place  at  which  I  must  die.  Stay  then 
awhile,  for  we  may  as  well  talk  with  one  another  while 
there  is  time.  You  are  my  friends,  and  I  should  like 
to  show  you  the  meaning  of  this  event  which  has  hap¬ 
pened  to  me.  O  my  judges  —  for  you  I  may  truly 
call  judges  —  I  should  like  to  tell  you  of  a  wonderful 
circumstance.  Hitherto  the  familiar  oracle  within  me 
has  constantly  been  in  the  habit  of  opposing  me  even 
about  trifles,  if  I  was  going  to  make  a  slip  or  error 
about  anything;  and  now  as  you  see  there  has  come 
upon  me  that  which  may  be  thought,  and  is  generally 
believed  to  be,  the  last  and  worst  evil.  But  the  oracle 
made  no  sign  of  opposition,  either  as  I  was  leaving 
my  house  and  going  out  in  the  morning,  or  when  I 
was  going  up  into  this  court,  or  while  I  was  speaking, 
at  anything  which  I  was  going  to  say;  and  yet  I 
have  often  been  stopped  in  the  middle  of  a  speech, 
but  now  in  nothing  I  either  said  or  did  touching  this 
matter  has  the  oracle  opposed  me.  What  do  I  take 
to  be  the  explanation  of  this?  I  will  tell  you.  I  re- 


132 


APOLOGY 


gard  this  as  a  proof  that  what  has  happened  to  me 
is  a  good,  and  that  those  of  us  who  think  that  death 
is  an  evil  are  in  error.  This  is  a  great  proof  to  me 
of  what  I  am  saying,  for  the  customary  sign  would 
surely  have  opposed  me  had  I  been  going  to  evil  and 
not  to  good. 

Let  us  reflect  in  another  way,  and  we  shall  see  that 
there  is  great  reason  to  hope  that  death  is  a  good, 
for  one  of  two  things :  —  either  death  is  a  state  of 
nothingness  and  utter  unconsciousness,  or,  as  men  say, 
there  is  a  change  and  migration  of  the  soul  from  this 
world  to  another.  Now  if  you  suppose  that  there  is 
no  consciousness,  but  a  sleep  like  the  sleep  of  him  who 
is  undisturbed  even  by  the  sight  of  dreams,  death  will 
be  an  unspeakable  gain.  For  if  a  person  were  to 
select  the  night  in  which  his  sleep  was  undisturbed 
even  by  dreams,  and  were  to  compare  with  this  the 
other  days  and  nights  of  his  life,  and  then  were  to 
tell  us  how  many  days  and  nights  he  had  passed  in 
the  course  of  his  life  better  and  more  pleasantly  than 
this  one,  I  think  that  any  man,  I  will  not  say  a  private 
man,  but  even  the  great  king  will  not  find  many  such 
days  or  nights,  when  compared  with  the  others.  Now 
if  death  is  like  this,  I  say  that  to  die  is  gain;  for 
eternity  is  then  only  a  single  night.  But  if  death  is 
’  the  journey  to  another  place,  and  there,  as  men  say, 
all  the  dead  are,  what  good,  O  my  friends  and  judges, 
can  he  greater  than  this?  If  indeed  when  the  pilgrim 
arrives  in  the  world  below,  he  is  delivered  from  the 
professors  of  justice  in  this  world,  and  finds  the  true 
judges  who  are  said  to  give  judgment  there,  Minos 
and  Bhadamanthus  and  Aeacus  and  Triptolemus, 
and  other  sons  of  God  who  were  righteous  in  their 
own  life,  that  pilgrimage  will  be  worth  making. 
What  would  not  a  man  give  if  he  might  converse 
with  Orpheus  and  Musaeus  and  Hesiod  and  Homer? 


APOLOGY 


133 


Nay,  if  this  be  true,  let  me  die  again  and  again.  I, 
too,  shall  have  a  wonderful  interest  in  a  place  where 
I  can  converse  with  Palamedes,  and  Ajax  the  son  of 
Telamon,  and  other  heroes  of  old,  who  have  suffered 
death  through  an  unjust  judgment;  and  there  will 
be  no  small  pleasure,  as  I  think,  in  comparing  my 
own  sufferings  with  theirs.  Above  all,  I  shall  be  able 
to  continue  my  search  into  true  and  false  knowledge; 
as  in  this  world,  so  also  in  that ;  I  shall  find  out  who 
is  wise,  and  who  pretends  to  be  wise,  and  is  not. 
What  would  not  a  man  give,  O  judges,  to  be  able 
to  examine  the  leader  of  the  great  Trojan  expedition; 
or  Odysseus  or  Sisyphus,  or  numberless  others,  men 
and  women  too!  What  infinite  delight  would  there 
be  in  conversing  with  them  and  asking  them  ques¬ 
tions!  For  in  that  world  they  do  not  put  a  man  to 
death  for  this;  certainly  not.  For  besides  being  hap¬ 
pier  in  that  world  than  in  this,  they  will  be  immortal, 
if  what  is  said  is  true. 

Wherefore,  O  judges,  be  of  good  cheer  about 
death,  and  know  this  of  a  truth  —  that  no  evil  can 
happen  to  a  good  man,  either  in  life  or  after  death. 
He  and  his  are  not  neglected  by  the  gods;  nor  has 
my  own  approaching  end  happened  by  mere  chance. 
But  I  see  clearly  that  to  die  and  be  released  was  better 
for  me;  and  therefore  the  oracle  gave  no  sign.  For 
which  reason,  also,  I  am  not  angry  with  my  accusers 
or  my  condemners;  they  have  done  me  no  harm, 
although  neither  of  them  meant  to  do  me  any  good; 
and  for  this  I  may  gently  blame  them. 

Still  I  have  a  favor  to  ask  of  them.  When  my  sons 
are  grown  up,  I  would  ask  you,  O  my  friends,  to 
punish  them;  and  I  would  have  you  trouble  them, 
as  I  have  troubled  you,  if  they  seem  to  care  about 
riches,  or  anything,  more  than  about  virtue;  or  if 
they  pretend  to  be  something  when  they  are  really 


134 


APOLOGY 


nothing,  —  then  reprove  them,  as  I  have  reproved 
you,  for  not  caring  about  that  for  which  they  ought 
to  care,  and  thinking  that  they  are  something  when 
they  are  really  nothing.  And  if  you  do  this,  X  and 
my  sons  will  have  received  justice  at  your  hands. 

The  hour  of  departure  has  arrived,  and  we  go  our 
ways  _  I  to  die,  and  you  to  live.  Which  is  better 

God  only  knows. 


CRITO 


mmmmm 


INTRODUCTION 


The  Crito  seems  intended  to  exhibit  the  character  of  Socrates 
in  one  light  only,  not  as  the  philosopher,  fulfilling  a  divine  mis¬ 
sion  and  trusting  in  the  will  of  heaven,  but  simply  as  the  good 
citizen,  who  having  been  unjustly  condemned  is  willing  to  give  up 
his  life  in  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the  state. 

The  days  of  Socrates  are  drawing  to  a  close;  the  fatal  ship 
has  been  seen  off  Sunium,  as  he  is  informed  by  his  aged  friend 
and  contemporary  Crito,  who  visits  him  before  the  dawn  has 
broken ;  he  himself  has  been  warned  in  a  dream  that  on  the  third 
day  he  must  depart.  Time  is  precious,  and  Crito  has  come  early 
in  order  to  gain  his  consent  to  a  plan  of  escape.  This  can  be 
easily  accomplished  by  his  friends,  who  will  incur  no  danger  in 
making  the  attempt  to  save  him,  but  will  be  disgraced  forever 
if  they  allow  him  to  perish.  He  should  think  of  his  duty  to  his 
children,  and  not  play  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies.  Money 
is  already  provided  by  Crito  as  well  as  by  Simmias  and  others, 
and  he  will  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  friends  in  Thessaly  and 
other  places. 

Socrates  is  afraid  that  Crito  is  but  pressing  upon  him  the 
opinions  of  the  many:  whereas,  all  his  life  long  he  has  followed 
the  dictates  of  reason  only  and  the  opinion  of  the  one  wise  or 
skilled  man.  There  was  a  time  when  Crito  himself  had  allowed 
the  propriety  of  this.  And  although  some  one  will  say  “  the 
many  can  kill  us,”  that  makes  no  difference;  but  a  good  life, 
that  is  to  say  a  just  and  honorable  life,  is  alone  to  be  valued. 
All  considerations  of  loss  of  reputation  or  injury  to  his  children 
should  be  dismissed:  the  only  question  is  whether  he  would  be 
right  in  attempting  to  escape.  Crito,  who  is  a  disinterested 
person  not  having  the  fear  of  death  before  his  eyes,  shall  answer 
this  for  him.  Before  he  was  condemned  they  had  often  held 
discussions,  in  which  they  agreed  that  no  man  should  either  do 
evil,  or  return  evil  for  evil,  or  betray  the  right.  Are  these  prin¬ 
ciples  to  be  altered  because  the  circumstances  of  Socrates  are 
altered?  Crito  admits  that  they  remain  the  same.  Then  is  his 

137 


138 


CRITO 


[/ 


escape  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of  them?  To  this  Crito 

is  unable  or  unwilling  to  reply. 

Socrates  proceeds:  —  Suppose  the  laws  of  Athens  to  come 
and  remonstrate  with  him:  they  will  ask  Why  does  he  seek 
to  overturn  them?  ”  and  if  he  replies,  “  they  have  injured  him/’ 
will  not  the  laws  answer,  “Yes,  but  was  that  the  agreement? 
Has  he  any  objection  to  make  to  them  which  would  justify  him 
in  overturning  them?  Was  he  not  brought  into  the  world  and 
educated  by  their  help,  and  are  they  not  his  parents  ?  He  might 
have  left  Athens  and  gone  where  he  pleased,  but  he  has  lived 
there  for  seventy  years  more  constantly  than  any  other  citizen. 
Thus  he  has  clearly  shown  that  he  acknowledged  the  agreement 
which  he  can  not  now  break  without  dishonor  to  himself  and 
danger  to  his  friends.  Even  in  the  course  of  the  trial  he  might 
have  proposed  exile  as  the  penalty,  but  then  he  declared  that  he 
preferred  death  to  exile.  And  whither  will  he  direct  his  foot¬ 
steps  ?  In  any  well-ordered  state  the  laws  will  consider  him 
as  an  enemy.  Possibly  in  a  land  of  misrule  like  Thessaly  he 
may  be  welcomed  at  first,  and  the  unseemly  narrative  of  his 
escape  regarded  by  the  inhabitants  as  an  amusing  tale.  But  if 
he  offends  them  he  will  have  to  learn  another  sort  of  lesson. 
Will  he  continue  to  give  lectures  in  virtue?  That  would  hardly 
be  decent.  And  how  will  his  children  be  the  gainers  if  he  takes 
them  into  Thessaly,  and  deprives  them  of  Athenian  citizenship? 
Or  if  he  leaves  them  behind,  does  he  expect  that  they  will  be 
better  taken  care  of  by  his  friends  because  he  is  in  Thessaly? 
Will  not  true  friends  care  for  them  equally  whether  he  is  alive 

or  dead?  _  . 

Finally,  they  exhort  him  to  think  of  justice  first,  and  of  life 

and  children  afterwards.  He  may  now  depart  in  peace  and  in¬ 
nocence,  a  sufferer  and  not  a  doer  of  evil.  But  if  he  breaks 
agreements,  and  returns  evil  for  evil,  they  will  be  angry  wit 
him  while  he  lives;  and  their  brethren  the  laws  of  the  world 
below  will  receive  him  as  an  enemy.  Such  is  the  mystic  voice 
which  is  always  murmuring  in  his  ears. 


That  Socrates  was  not  a  good  citizen  was  a  charge  made 
against  him  during  his  lifetime,  which  has  been  often  repeated  m 
later  ages.  The  crimes  of  Alcibiades,  Critias,  and  Charmides, 
who  had  been  his  pupils,  were  still  recent  in  the  memory  of  the 
now  restored  democracy.  The  fact  that  he  had  been  neutral  in 
the  death-struggle  of  Athens  was  not  likely  to  conciliate  popular 
good-will.  Plato,  writing  probably  in  the  next  generation,  un- 


INTRODUCTION 


139 


dertakes  the  defence  of  his  friend  and  master  in  this  particular, 
not  to  the  Athenians  of  his  day,  but  to  posterity  and  the  world 
at  large. 

Whether  such  an  incident  ever  really  occurred  as  the  visit  of 
Crito  and  the  proposal  of  escape  is  uncertain:  Plato  could  easily 
have  invented  far  more  than  that;  and  in  the  selection  of  Crito, 
the  aged  friend,  as  the  fittest  person  to  make  the  proposal  to 
Socrates,  we  seem  to  recognize  the  hand  of  the  artist.  Whether 
any  one  who  has  been  subjected  by  the  laws  of  his  country  to 
an  unjust  judgment  is  right  in  attempting  to  escape,  is  a  thesis 
about  which  casuists  might  disagree.  Shelley  is  of  opinion  that 
Socrates  “  did  well  to  die/’  but  not  for  the  “  sophistical  ”  reasons 
which  Plato  has  put  into  his  mouth.  And  there  would  be  no 
difficulty  in  arguing  that  Socrates  should  have  lived  and  pre¬ 
ferred  to  a  glorious  death  the  good  which  he  might  still  be  able 
to  perform.  “  A  skilful  rhetorician  would  have  had  much  to  say 
about  that.”  It  may  be  remarked  however  that  Plato  never 
intended  to  answer  the  question  of  casuistry,  but  only  to  exhibit 
the  ideal  of  patient  virtue  which  refuses  to  do  the  least  evil  in 
order  to  avoid  the  greatest,  and  to  show  Socrates,  his  master, 
maintaining  in  death  the  opinions  which  he  had  professed  in 
his  life.  Not  “  the  world/’  but  the  “  one  wise  man,”  is  still  the 
philosopher’s  paradox  in  his  last  hours. 


CRITO 


PERSONS  OF  THE  DIALOGUE 

Socrates.  Crito. 

Scene  :  —  The  Prison  of  Socrates. 

Socrates.  Why  have  you  come  at  this  hour,  Crito? 
it  must  be  quite  early? 

Crito.  Yes,  certainly. 

Soc.  What  is  the  exact  time? 

Cr.  The  dawn  is  breaking. 

Soc.  I  wonder  that  the  keeper  of  the  prison  would 
let  you  in. 

Cr.  He  knows  me,  because  I  often  come,  Socrates; 
moreover,  I  have  done  him  a  kindness. 

Soc.  And  are  you  only  just  come? 

Cr.  Yo,  I  came  some  time  ago. 

Soc.  Then  why  did  you  sit  and  say  nothing,  instead 
of  awakening  me  at  once? 

Cr.  Why,  indeed,  Socrates,  I  myself  would  rather 
not  have  all  this  sleeplessness  and  sorrow.  But  I 
have  been  wondering  at  your  peaceful  slumbers,  and 
that  was  the  reason  why  I  did  not  awaken  you,  be¬ 
cause  I  wanted  you  to  be  out  of  pain.  I  have  always 
thought  you  happy  in  the  calmness  of  your  tempera¬ 
ment  ;  but  never  did  I  see  the  like  of  the  easy,  cheer¬ 
ful  way  in  which  you  bear  this  calamity. 

Soc.  Why,  Crito,  when  a  man  has  reached  my  age 
he  ought  not  to  be  repining  at  the  prospect  of  death. 

Cr.  And  yet  other  old  men  find  themselves  in  sim- 

141 


142 


CRITO 


ilar  misfortunes,  and  age  does  not  prevent  them  from 
•  • 


^That  may  be.  But  you  have  not  told  me  why 

vou  come  at  this  early  hour.  •  j 

*  Cr.  I  come  to  bring  you  a  message  which  is  sad 
and  painful;  not,  as  I  believe.toyoui^lfbutto  al 
of  us1  who  are  your  friends,  and  saddest  of  all  to  m  . 
Soc.  What!  I  suppose  that  the  ship  has  come  from 

Delos  on  the  arrival  of  which  I  am  to  die . 

Cr  No,  the  ship  has  not  actually  arrived,  but  s  e 
will  probably  be  here  to-day,  as  persons  who  have 
come  from  Sunium  tell  me  that  t  ey  e  ^ 

and  therefore  to-morrow,  Socrates,  will  be  the  1 

dl?SYjc  Wery1  well,  Crito;  if  such  is  the  will  of  God, 
I  am  willing;  but  my  belief  is  that  there  will  be  a 

delay  of  a  day. 

Soc.Twill0teyU  yom  Yam  to  die  on  the  day  after 
the  arrival  of  the  ship? 

Cr  Yes;  that  is  what  the  authorities  say. 

Soc.  But  I  do  not  think  that  the  ship  will  be  here 
until  to-morrow;  this  I  gather  from  a  vision  which 
iSad  last  night,  or  rather  only  just  now,  when  you 

fortunately  allowed  me  to  sleep.  . 

Cr  And  what  was  the  nature  of  the  vision . 

Voc  There  came  to  me  the  likeness  of  a  woman 
fair  and  comely,  clothed  in  white  raiment,  who  called 

to  me  and  said*.  O  Socrates, 


“  The  third  day  hence  to  Phthia  shalt  thou  go. 

Cr  What  a  singular  dream,  Socrates!  . 

Soc.  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  meaning, 

Clfv’  Yes ;  the  meaning  is  only  too  clear.  But,  Oh 1 
my  beloved  Socrates,  let  me  entreat  you  once  more 


CRITO 


143 


«  i. 

to  take  my  advice  and  escape.  For  if  you  die  I  shall 
not  only  lose  a  friend  who  can  never  be  replaced,  but 
there  is  another  evil:  people  who  do  not  know  you 
and  me  will  believe  that  I  might  have  saved  you  if 
I  had  been  willing  to  give  money,  but  that  I  did  not 
care.  Now,  can  there  be  a  worse  disgrace  than  this  — 
that  I  should  be  thought  to  value  money  more  than 
the  life  of  a  friend?  For  the  many  will  not  be  per¬ 
suaded  that  I  wanted  you  to  escape,  and  that  you 
refused. 

Soc.  But  why,  my  dear  Crito,  should  we  care  about 
the  opinion  of  the  many?  Good  men,  and  they  are 
the  only  persons  who  are  worth  considering,  will  think 
of  these  things  truly  as  they  happened. 

Cr.  But  do  you  see,  Socrates,  that  the  opinion  of 
the  many  must  be  regarded,  as  is  evident  in  your  own 
case,  because  they  can  do  the  very  greatest  evil  to 
any  one  wTho  has  lost  their  good  opinion. 

Soc .  I  only  wish,  Crito,  that  they  could;  for  then 
they  could  also  do  the  greatest  good,  and  that  would 
be  well.  But  the  truth  is,  that  they  can  do  neither 
good  nor  evil :  they  can  not  make  a  man  wise  or  make 
him  foolish;  and  whatever  they  do  is  the  result  of 
chance. 

Cr.  W ell,  I  will  not  dispute  about  that ;  but  please 
to  tell  me,  Socrates,  whether  you  are  not  acting  out 
of  regard  to  me  and  your  other  friends:  are  you  not 
afraid  that  if  you  escape  hence  we  may  get  into 
trouble  with  the  informers  for  having  stolen  you 
away,  and  lose  either  the  whole  or  a  great  part  of  our 
property;  or  that  even  a  worse  evil  may  happen  to 
us?  Now,  if  this  is  your  fear,  be  at  ease;  for  in  order 
to  save  you,  we  ought  surely  to  run  this,  or  even  a 
greater  risk ;  be  persuaded,  then,  and  do  as  I  say. 

Soc.  Yes,  Crito,  that  is  one  fear  which  you  men¬ 
tion,  but  by  no  means  the  only  one. 


144 


CRITO 


Cr.  Fear  not.  There  are  persons  who  at  no  great 
cost  are  willing  to  save  you  and  bring  you  out  of 
prison ;  and  as  for  the  informers,  you  may  observe 
that  they  are  far  from  being  exorbitant  in  their  de¬ 
mands;  a  little  money  will  satisfy  them.  My  means, 
which,  as  I  am  sure,  are  ample,  are  at  your  service, 
and  if  you  have  a  scruple  about  spending  all  mine, 
here  are  strangers  who  will  give  you  the  use  of  theirs ; 
and  one  of  them,  Simmias  the  Theban,  has  brought 
a  sum  of  money  for  this  very  purpose;  and  Cebes  and 
many  others  are  willing  to  spend  their  money  too. 
say  therefore,  do  not  on  that  account  hesitate  about 
making  your  escape,  and  do  not  say,  as  you  did  in 
the  court,  that  you  will  have  a  difficulty  in  knowing 
what  to  do  with  yourself  if  you  escape.  For  men  will 
love  you  in  other  places  to  which  you  may  go,  and  not 
in  Athens  only;  there  are  friends  of  mine  in  Thes¬ 
saly  if  you  like  to  go  to  them,  who  will  value  and 
protect  you,  and  no  Thessalian  will  give  you  any 
trouble.  Nor  can  I  think  that  you  are  justified,  Soc¬ 
rates,  in  betraying  your  own  life  when  you  might  be 
saved;  this  is  "playing  into  the  hands  of  your  enemies 
and  destroyers ;  and  moreover  I  should  say  that  you 
were  betraying  your  children;  for  you  might  bring 
them  up  and  educate  them;  instead  of  which  you  go 
away  and  leave  them,  and  they  will  have  to  take  their 
chance;  and  if  they  do  not  meet  with  the  usual  fate 
of  orphans,  there  will  be  small  thanks  to  you.  N  o 
man  should  bring  children  into  the  world  who  is  un¬ 
willing  to  persevere  to  the  end  in  their  nurture  and 
education.  But  you  are  choosing  the  easier  part,  as 
I  think,  not  the  better  and  manlier,  which  would 
rather  have  become  one  who  professes  virtue  in  all  Ins 
actions,  like  yourself.  And  indeed,  I  am  ashamed  not 
only  of  you,  but  of  us  who  are  your  friends,  when 
I  reflect  that  this  entire  business  of  yours  will  be- 


CRITO 


145 


attributed  to  our  want  of  courage.  The  trial  need 
never  have  come  on,  or  might  have  been  brought  to 
another  issue ;  and  the  end  of  all,  which  is  the  crown¬ 
ing  absurdity,  will  seem  to  have  been  permitted  by 
us,  through  cowardice  and  baseness,  who  might  have 
saved  you,  as  you  might  have  saved  yourself,  if  we 
had  been  good  for  anything  (for  there  was  no  diffi¬ 
culty  in  escaping)  ;  and  we  did  not  see  how  disgrace¬ 
ful,  Socrates,  and  also  miserable  all  this  will  be  to 
us  as  well  as  to  you.  Make  your  mind  up  then,  or 
rather  have  your  mind  already  made  up,  for  the  time 
of  deliberation  is  over,  and  there  is  only  one  thing  to 
be  done,  which  must  be  done,  if  at  all,  this  very  night, 
and  which  any  delay  will  render  all  but  impossible; 
I  beseech  you  therefore,  Socrates,  to  be  persuaded 
by  me,  and  to  do  as  I  say. 

Soc.  Dear  Crito,  your  zeal  is  invaluable,  if  a  right 
one;  but  if  wrong,  the  greater  the  zeal  the  greater 
the  evil;  and  therefore  we  ought  to  consider  whether 
these  things  shall  be  done  or  not.  For  I  am  and 
always  have  been  one  of  those  natures  who  must  be 
guided  by  reason,  whatever  the  reason  may  be  which 
upon  reflection  appears  to  me  to  be  the  best ;  and  now 
that  this  fortune  has  come  upon  me,  I  can  not  put 
away  the  reasons  which  I  have  before  given:  the 
principles  which  I  have  hitherto  honored  and  revered 
I  still  honor,  and  unless  we  can  find  other  and  better 
principles  on  the  instant,  I  am  certain  not  to  agree 
with  you;  no,  not  even  if  the  power  of  the  multitude 
could  inflict  many  more  imprisonments,  confiscations, 
deaths,  frightening  us  like  children  with  hobgoblin 
terrors.  But  what  will  be  the  fairest  way  of  consid¬ 
ering  the  question?  Shall  I  return  to  your  old  argu¬ 
ment  about  the  opinions  of  men?  some  of  which  are 
to  be  regarded,  and  others,  as  we  were  saying,  are 
not  to  be  regarded.  Now  were  we  right  in  maintain- 


146 


CRITO 


ing  this  before  I  was  condemned?  And  has  the  argu¬ 
ment  which  was  once  good  now  proved  to  be  talk  for 
the  sake  of  talking;  —  in  fact  an  amusement  only, 
and  altogether  vanity?  That  is  what  I  want  to  con¬ 
sider  with  your  help,  Crito :  —  whether,  under  my 
present  circumstances,  the  argument  appears  to  be 
in  any  way  different  or  not;  and  is  to  be  allowed  by 
me  or  disallowed.  That  argument,  which,  as  I  be¬ 
lieve,  is  maintained  by  many  who  assume  to  be  author¬ 
ities,  was  to  the  effect,  as  I  was  saying,  that  the  opin¬ 
ions  of  some  men  are  to  be  regarded,  and  of  other  men 
not  to  be  regarded.  Now  you,  Crito,  are  a  disinter¬ 
ested  person  who  are  not  going  to  die  to-morrow  at 
least,  there  is  no  human  probability  of  this,  and  you 
are  therefore  not  liable  to  be  deceived  by  the  circum¬ 
stances  in  which  you  are  placed.  Tell  me  then, 
whether  I  am  right  in  saying  that  some  opinions,  and 
the  opinions  of  some  men  only,  are  to  be  valued,  and 
other  opinions,  and  the  opinions  of  other  men,  are 
not  to  be  valued.  I  ask  you  whether  I  was  right  in 
maintaining  this? 

Cr.  Certainly. 

Soc .  The  good  are  to  be  regarded,  and  not  the  bad  ? 

Cr.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  the  opinions  of  the  wise  are  good,  and 
the  opinions  of  the  unwise  are  evil? 

Cr.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  what  was  said  about  another  matter? 
Was  the  disciple  in  gymnastics  supposed  to  attend 
to  the  praise  and  blame  and  opinion  of  every  man, 
or  of  one  man  only  —  his  physician  or  trainer,  who¬ 
ever  that  was? 

Cr.  Of  one  man  only. 

Soc.  And  he  ought*  to  fear  the  censure  and  wel¬ 
come  the  praise  of  that  one  only,  and  not  of  the  man}  ? 

Cr.  That  is  clear. 


CRITO 


147 


Soc.  And  he  ought  to  live  and  train,  and  eat  and 
drink  in  the  way  which  seems  good  to  his  single  mas¬ 
ter  who  has  understanding,  rather  than  according  to 
the  opinion  of  all  other  men  put  together? 

Cr .  True. 

Soc.  And  if  he  disobeys  and  disregards  the  opinion 
and  approval  of  the  one,  and  regards  the  opinion  of 
the  many  who  have  no  understanding,  will  he  not 
suffer  evil  ? 

Cr.  Certainly  he  will. 

Soc.  And  what  will  the  evil  be,  whither  tending 
and  what  affecting,  in  the  disobedient  person? 

Cr.  Clearly,  affecting  the  body;  that  is  what  is 
destroyed  by  the  evil. 

Soc.  Very  good;  and  is  not  this  true,  Crito,  of 
other  things  which  we  need  not  separately  enumerate  ? 
In  the  matter  of  just  and  unjust,  fair  and  foul,  good 
and  evil,  which  are  the  subjects  of  our  present  con¬ 
sultation,  ought  we  to  follow  the  opinion  of  the  many 
and  to  fear  them;  or  the  opinion  of  the  one  man  who, 
has  understanding,  and  whom  we  ought  to  fear  and 
reverence  more  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world:  and 
whom  deserting  we  shall  destroy  and  injure  that  prin¬ 
ciple  in  us  which  may  be  assumed  to  be  improved  by 
justice  and  deteriorated  by  injustice;  —  is  there  not 
such  a  principle? 

Cr.  Certainly  there  is,  Socrates. 

Soc.  Take  a  parallel  instance :  —  if,  acting  under 
the  advice  of  men  who  have  no  understanding,  we 
destroy  that  which  is  improvable  by  health  and  deteri¬ 
orated  by  disease  —  when  that  has  been  destroyed,  I 
say,  would  life  be  worth  having  ?  And  that  is  —  the 
body? 

Cr.  Yes. 

Soc.  Could  we  live,  having  an  evil  and  corrupted 
body? 


148 


CRITO 


Cr .  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  And  will  life  be  worth  having,  if  that  higher 
part  of  man  be  depraved,  which  is  improved  by  jus¬ 
tice  and  deteriorated  by  injustice?.  Do  we  suppose 
that  principle,  whatever  it  may  be  in  man,  which  has 
to  do  with  justice  and  injustice,  to  be  inferior  to  the 

body? 

Cr .  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  More  honored,  then? 

Cr.  Far  more  honored. 

Soc.  Then,  my  friend,  we  must  not  regard  what 
the  many  say  of  us :  but  what  he,  the  one  man  who  has 
understanding  of  just  and  unjust,  wTill  say,  and  what 
the  truth  will  say.  And  therefore  you  begin  in  error 
when  you  suggest  that  we  should  regard  the  opinion 
of  the  many  about  just  and  unjust,  good  and  evil, 
honorable  and  dishonorable.  —  Well,  some  one  will 

say,  “  but  the  many  can  kill  us.” 

Cr.  Yes,  Socrates ;  that  will  clearly  be  the  answer. 

Soc.  That  is  true :  but  still  I  find  with  surprise  that 
the  old  argument  is,  as  I  conceive,  unshaken  as  ever. 
And  I  should  like  to  know  whether  I  may  say  the 
same  of  another  proposition  —  that  not  life,  but  a 
good  life,  is  to  be  chiefly  valued? 

Cr.  Yes,  that  also  remains. 

Soc.  And  a  good  life  is  equivalent  to  a  just  and 
honorable  one  —  that  holds  also  ? 

Cr.  Yes,  that  holds. 

Soc.  From  these  premisses  I  proceed  to  argue  the 
question  whether  I  ought  or  ought  not  to  try  and 
escape  without  the  consent  of  the  Athenians:  and  if 
I  am  clearly  right  in  escaping,  then  I  will  make  the 
attempt;  but  if  not,  I  will  abstain.  The  other  con¬ 
siderations  which  you  mention,  of  money  and  loss  of 
character  and  the  duty  of  educating  children,  are,  as 
I  fear,  only  the  doctrines  of  the  multitude,  who  would 


CRITO 


149 


be  as  ready  to  call  people  to  life,  if  they  were  able, 
as  they  are  to  put  them  to  death  —  and  with  as  little 
reason.  But  now,  since  the  argument  has  thus  far 
prevailed,  the  only  question  which  remains  to  be  con¬ 
sidered  is,  whether  we  shall  do  rightly  either  in  escap¬ 
ing  or  in  suffering  others  to  aid  in  our  escape  and 
paying  them  in  money  and  thanks,  or  whether  we 
shall  not  do  rightly ;  and  if  the  latter,  then  death  or 
any  other  calamity  which  may  ensue  on  my  remaining 
here  must  not  be  allowed  to  enter  into  the  calculation. 

Cr.  I  think  that  you  are  right,  Socrates;  how  then 
shall  we  proceed? 

Soc.  Let  us  consider  the  matter  together,  and  do 
you  either  refute  me  if  you  can,  and  I  will  be  con¬ 
vinced  ;  or  else  cease,  my  dear  friend,  from  repeating 
to  me  that  I  ought  to  escape  against  the  wishes  of 
the  Athenians:  for  I  am  extremely  desirous  to  be 
persuaded  by  you,  but  not  against  my  own  better 
judgment.  And  now  please  to  consider  my  first  posi¬ 
tion,  and  do  your  best  to  answer  me. 

Cr.  I  will  do  my  best. 

Soc.  Are  we  to  say  that  we  are  never  intentionally 
to  do  wrong,  or  that  in  one  way  we  ought  and  in 
another  way  we  ought  not  to  do  wrong,  or  is  doing 
wrong  always  evil  and  dishonorable,  as  I  was  just 
now  saying,  and  as  has  been  already  acknowledged 
by  us?  Are  all  our  former  admissions  which  were 
made  within  a  few  days  to  be  thrown  away?  And 
have  we,  at  our  age,  been  earnestly  discoursing  with 
one  another  all  our  life  long  only  to  discover  that  we 
are  no  better  than  children?  Or  are  we  to  rest  assured, 
in  spite  of  the  opinion  of  the  many,  and  in  spite  of 
consequences  whether  better  or  worse,  of  the  truth 
of  what  was  then  said,  that  injustice  is  always  an 
evil  and  dishonor  to  him  who  acts  unjustly?  Shall 
we  affirm  that? 


150 


CRITO 


Cr.  Yes. 

Soc.  Then  we  must  do  no  wrong? 

Cr.  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  Nor  when  injured  injure  in  return,  as  the 
many  imagine;  for  wre  must  injure  no  one  at  all? 

Cr.  Clearly  not. 

Soc.  Again,  Crito,  may  we  do  evil? 

Cr.  Surely  not,  Socrates. 

Soc.  And  what  of  doing  evil  in  return  for  evil, 
which  is  the  morality  of  the  many  —  is  that  just  or 
not? 

Cr.  Not  just. 

Soc.  For  doing  evil  to  another  is  the  same  as  injur¬ 
ing  him? 

Cr.  Very  true. 

Soc.  Then  we  ought  not  to  retaliate  or  render  evil 
for  evil  to  any  one,  whatever  evil  we  may  have  suf¬ 
fered  from  him.  But  I  would  have  you  consider, 
Crito,  whether  you  really  mean  what  you  are  saying. 
For  this  opinion  has  never  been  held,  and  never  will 
be  held,  by  any  considerable  number  of  persons ;  and 
those  who  are  agreed  and  those  who  are  not  agreed 
upon  this  point  have  no  common  ground,  and  can 
only  despise  one  another  when  they  see  how  widely 
they  differ.  Tell  me,  then,  whether  you  agree  with 
and  assent  to  my  first  principle,  that  neither  injury 
nor  retaliation  nor  warding  off  evil  by  evil  is  ever 
right.  And  shall  that  be  the  premiss  of  our  argu¬ 
ment?  Or  do  you  decline  and  dissent  from  this?  For 
this  has  been  of  old  and  is  still  my  opinion;  but,  if 
you  are  of  another  opinion,  let  me  hear  what  you  have 
to  say.  If,  however,  you  remain  of  the  same  mind 
as  formerly,  I  will  proceed  to  the  next  step. 

Cr.  You  may  proceed,  for  I  have  not  changed  my 
mind. 

Soc.  Then  I  will  proceed  to  the  next  step,  which 


CRITO 


151 


may  be  put  in  the  form  of  a  question:  —  Ought  a 
man  to  do  what  he  admits  to  be  right,  or  ought  he 
to  betray  the  right? 

Cr.  He  ought  to  do  what  he  thinks  right. 

Soc.  But  if  this  is  true,  what  is  the  application? 
In  leaving  the  prison  against  the  will  of  the  Atheni¬ 
ans,  do  I  wrong  any?  or  rather  do  I  not  wrong  those 
whom  I  ought  least  to  wrong?  Do  I  not  desert  the 
principles  which  were  acknowledged  by  us  to  be  just? 
What  do  you  say? 

Cr.  I  can  not  tell,  Socrates;  for  I  do  not  know. 

Soc.  Then  consider  the  matter  in  this  way:  —  Im¬ 
agine  that  I  am  about  to  play  truant  (you  may  call 
the  proceeding  by  any  name  which  you  like),  and  the 
laws  and  the  government  come  and  interrogate  me: 
“  Tell  us,  Socrates,”  they  say;  “  what  are  you  about? 
are  you  going  by  an  act  of  yours  to  overturn  us  — 
the  laws  and  the  whole  state,  as  far  as  in  you  lies? 
Do  you  imagine  that  a  state  can  subsist  and  not  be 
overthrown,  in  which  the  decisions  of  law  have  no 
power,  but  are  set  aside  and  overthrown  by  individ¬ 
uals?  ”  What  will  be  our  answer,  Crito,  to  these  and 
the  like  words  ?  Any  one,  and  especially  a  clever  rhet¬ 
orician,  will  have  a  good  deal  to  urge  about  the  evil 
of  setting  aside  the  law  which  requires  a  sentence  to 
be  carried  out;  and  we  might  reply,  “  Yes;  but  the 
state  has  injured  us  and  given  an  unjust  sentence.” 
Suppose  I  say  that? 

Cr.  Very  good,  Socrates. 

Soc.  “  And  was  that  our  agreement  with  you?  ” 
the  law  would  say;  “or  were  you  to  abide  by  the 
sentence  of  the  state?  ”  And  if  I  were  to  express 
astonishment  at  their  saying  this,  the  law  would  prob¬ 
ably  add:  “  Answer,  Socrates,  instead  of  opening  your 
eyes:  you  are  in  the  habit  of  asking  and  answering 
questions.  Tell  us  what  complaint  you  have  to  make 


152 


CRITO 


against  us  which  justifies  you  in  attempting  to  destroy 
us  and  the  state?  In  the  first  place  did  we  not  bring 
you  into  existence  ?  Y our  father  married  your  mother 
by  our  aid  and  begat  you.  Say  whether  you  have 
any  objection  to  urge  against  those  of  us  who  regu¬ 
late  marriage  ?  ”  None,  I  should  reply.  “  Or  against 
those  of  us  who  regulate  the  system  of  nurture  and 
education  of  children  in  which  you  were  trained? 
Were  not  the  laws,  who  have  the  charge  of  this,  right 
in  commanding  your  father  to  train  you  in  music  and 
gymnastic?  ”  Right,  I  should  reply.  Well  then, 
since  you  were  brought  into  the  world  and  nurtured 
and  educated  by  us,  can  you  deny  in  the  first  place 
that  you  are  our  child  and  slave,  as  your  fathers  were 
before  you?  And  if  this  is  true  you  are  not  on  equal 
terms  with  us;  nor  can  you  think  that  you  have  a 
right  to  do  to  us  what  we  are  doing  to  you.  Would 
you  have  any  right  to  strike  or  revile  or  do  any  other 
evil  to  a  father  or  to  your  master,  if  you  had  one,  when 
you  have  been  struck  or  reviled  by  him,  or  received 
some  other  evil  at  his  hands?  —  you  would  not  say 
this?  And  because  we  think  right  to  destroy  you, 
do  you  think  that  you  have  any  right  to  destroy  us  in 
return,  and  your  country  as  far  as  in  you  lies?  And 
will  you,  O  professor  of  true  virtue,  say  that  you  are 
justified  in  this?  Has  a  philosopher  like  you  failed 
to  discover  that  our  country  is  more  to  be  valued  and 
higher  and  holier  far  than  mother  or  father  or  any 
ancestor,  and  more  to  be  regarded  in  the  eyes  of  the 
gods  and  of  men  of  understanding?  also  to  be  soothed, 
and  gently  and  reverently  entreated  when  angry,  even 
more  than  a  father,  and  if  not  persuaded,  obeyed? 
And  when  we  are  punished  by  her,  whether  with  im¬ 
prisonment  or  stripes,  the  punishment  is  to  be  endured 
m  silence;  and  if  she  lead  us  to  wounds  or  death  in 
battle,  thither  we  follow  as  is  right;  neither  may  any 


CRITO 


153 


one  yield  or  retreat  or  leave  his  rank,  but  whether  in 
battle  or  in  a  court  of  law,  or  in  any  other  place,  he 
must  do  what  his  city  and  his  country  order  him;  or 
he  must  change  their  view  of  what  is  just:  and  if  he 
may  do  no  violence  to  his  father  or  mother,  much 
less  may  he  do  violence  to  his  country.”  What 
answer  shall  we  make  to  this,  Crito?  Do  the  laws 
speak  truly,  or  do  they  not? 

Cr.  I  think  that  they  do. 

Soc.  Then  the  laws  will  say:  “  Consider,  Socrates, 
if  this  is  true,  that  in  your  present  attempt  you  are 
going  to  do  us  wrong.  For,  after  having  brought 
you  into  the  world,  and  nurtured  and  educated  you, 
and  given  you  and  every  other  citizen  a  share  in  every 
good  that  we  had  to  give,  we  further  proclaim  and 
give  the  right  to  every  Athenian,  that  if  he  does  not 
like  us  when  he  has  come  of  age  and  has  seen  the  ways 
of  the  city,  and  made  our  acquaintance,  he  may  go 
where  he  pleases  and  take  his  goods  with  him;  and 
none  of  us  laws  will  forbid  him  or  interfere  with  him. 
Any  of  you  who  does  not  like  us  and  the  city,  and 
who  wants  to  go  to  a  colony  or  to  any  other  city,  may 
go  where  he  likes,  and  take  his  goods  with  him.  But 
he  who  has  experience  of  the  manner  in  which  we 
order  justice  and  administer  the  state,  and  still  re¬ 
mains,  has  entered  into  an  implied  contract  that  he 
will  do  as  we  command  him.  And  he  who  disobeys  us 
is,  as  we  maintain,  thrice  wrong;  first,  because  in  dis¬ 
obeying  us  he  is  disobeying  his  parents;  secondly,  be¬ 
cause  we  are  the  authors  of  his  education;  thirdly, 
because  he  has  made  an  agreement  with  us  that  he  will 
duly  obey  our  commands;  and  he  neither  obeys  them 
nor  convinces  us  that  our  commands  are  wrong;  and 
we  do  not  rudely  impose  them,  but  give  them  the 
alternative  of  obeying  or  convincing  us ; — that  is  what 
we  offer,  and  he  does  neither.  These  are  the  sort  of 


154 


CRITO 


accusations  to  which,  as  we  were  saying,  you,  Socrates, 
will  be  exposed  if  you  accomplish  your  intentions; 
you,  above  all  other  Athenians.  Suppose  I  ask, 
why  is  this?  they  will  justly  retort  upon  me 
that  I  above  all  other  men  have  acknowledged  the 
agreement.  “  There  is  clear  proof,”  they  will  say, 

“  Socrates,  that  we  and  the  city  were  not  displeasing 
to  you.  Of  all  Athenians  you  have  been  the  most  con¬ 
stant  resident  in  the  city,  which,  as  you  never  leave, 
you  may  be  supposed  to  love.  For  you  never  went 
out  of  the  city  either  to  see  the  games,  except  once 
when  you  went  to  the  Isthmus,  or  to  any  other  place 
unless  when  you  were  on  military  service;  nor  did  you 
travel  as  other  men  do.  Nor  had  you  any  curiosity  to 
know  other  states  or  their  laws:  your  affections  did 
not  go  beyond  us  and  our  state  ;  we  were  your  special 
favorites,  and  you  acquiesced  in  our  government  of 
vou;  and  this  is  the  state  in  which  you  begat  your  chil¬ 
dren,  which  is  a  proof  of  your  satisfaction.  Moreover, 
you  might,  if  you  had  liked,  have  fixed  the  penalty  at 
banishment  in  the  course  of  the  trial  —  the  state  which 
refuses  to  let  you  go  now  would  have  let  you  go  then. 
But  you  pretended  that  you  preferred  death  to  exile, 
and  that  you  were  not  grieved  at  death.  And  now 
vou  have  forgotten  these  fine  sentiments,  and  pay  no 
respect  to  us  the  laws,  of  whom  you  are  the  destroyer; 
and  are  doing  what  only  a  miserable  slave  would  do, 
running  away  and  turning  your  back  upon  the  com¬ 
pacts  and  agreements  which  you  made  as  a  citizen. 
And  first  of  all  answer  this  very  question:  Are  we 
right  in  saying  that  you  agreed  to  be  governed  accord¬ 
ing  to  us  in  deed,  and  not  in  word  only?  Is  that  true 
or  not?  ”  How  shall  we  answer  that,  Cnto.  Must 

we  not  agree? 

Cr.  There  is  no  help,  Socrates. 

Soc.  Then  will  they  not  say:  “  You,  Socrates,  are 


CRITO 


155 


breaking  the  covenants  and  agreements  which  you 
made  with  us  at  your  leisure,  not  in  any  haste  or  under 
any  compulsion  or  deception,  but  having  had  seventy 
years  to  think  of  them,  during  which  time  you  were 
at  liberty  to  leave  the  city,  if  we  were  not  to  your 
mind,  or  if  our  covenants  appeared  to  you  to  be  un¬ 
fair.  You  had  your  choice,  and  might  have  gone 
either  to  Lacedaemon  or  Crete,  which  you  often  praise 
for  their  good  government,  or  to  some  other  Hellenic 
or  foreign  state.  Whereas  you,  above  all  other 
Athenians,  seemed  to  be  so  fond  of  the  state,  or,  in 
other  words,  of  us  her  laws  (for  who  would  like  a  state 
that  has  no  laws),  that  you  never  stirred  out  of  her; 
the  halt,  the  blind,  the  maimed  were  not  more  station¬ 
ary  in  her  than  you  were.  And  now  you  run  away 
and  forsake  your  agreements.  Not  so,  Socrates,  if 
you  will  take  our  advice;  do  not  make  yourself 
ridiculous  by  escaping  out  of  the  city. 

“  For  just  consider,  if  you  transgress  and  err  in 
this  sort  of  way,  what  good  will  you  do  either  to  your¬ 
self  or  to  your  friends?  That  your  friends  will  be 
driven  into  exile  and  deprived  of  citizenship,  or  will 
lose  their  property,  is  tolerably  certain;  and  you  your¬ 
self,  if  you  fly  to  one  of  the  neighboring  cities,  as,  for 
example,  Thebes  or  Megara,  both  of  which  are  well- 
governed  cities,  will  come  to  them  as  an  enemy, 
Socrates,  and  their  government  will  be  against  you, 
and  all  patriotic  citizens  will  cast  an  evil  eye  upon  you 
as  a  subverter  of  the  laws,  and  you  will  confirm  in  the 
minds  of  the  judges  the  justice  of  their  own  con¬ 
demnation  of  you.  For  he  who  is  a  corruptor  of  the 
laws  is  more  than  likely  to  be  corruptor  of  the  young 
and  foolish  portion  of  mankind.  Will  you  then  flee 
from  well-ordered  cities  and  virtuous  men?  and  is 
existence  worth  having  on  these  terms?  Or  will  you 
go  to  them  without  shame,  and  talk  to  them,  Socrates  ? 


156 


CRITO 


And  what  will  you  say  to  them?  What  you  say  here 
about  virtue  and  justice  and  institutions  and  laws 
being  the  best  things  among  men.  Vi  ould  that  be 
decent  of  you  ?  Surely  not.  But  if  you  go  away  from 
well-governed  states  to  Crito’s  friends  in  Thessaly, 
where  there  is  a  great  disorder  and  license,  they  will  be 
charmed  to  have  the  tale  of  your  escape  from  prison, 
set  off  with  ludicrous  particulars  of  the  manner  in 
which  vou  were  wrapped  in  a  goatskin  or  some  other 
disguise,  and  metamorphosed  as  the  fashion  of  run¬ 
aways  is  —  that  is  very  likely ;  but  will  there  be  no  one 
to  remind  you  that  in  your  old  age  you  violated  the 
most  sacred  laws  from  a  miserable  desire  of  a  little 
more  life.  Perhaps  not,  if  you  keep  them  in  a  good 
temper;  but  if  they  are  out  of  temper  you  will  hear 
many  degrading  things ;  you  will  live,  but  how  —  as 
the  flatterer  of  all  men,  and  the  servant  of  all  men; 
and  doing  what?  —  eating  and  drinking  in  Thessaly, 
having  gone  abroad  in  order  that  you  may  get  a  din¬ 
ner.  And  where  will  be  your  fine  sentiments  about 
justice  and  virtue  then?  Say  that  you  wish  to  live 
for  the  sake  of  your  children,  that  you  may  bring 
them  up  and  educate  them  —  will  you  take  them  into 
Thessaly  and  deprive  them  of  Athenian  citizenship. 
Is  that  the  benefit  which  you  would  confer  upon  them . 
Or  are  you  under  the  impression  that  they  will  be 
better  cared  for  and  educated  here  if  you  are  still 
alive,  although  absent  from  them;  for  that  your 
friends  will  take  care  of  them?  Do  you  fancy  that  if 
you  are  an  inhabitant  of  Thessaly  they  will  take  care 
of  them,  and  if  you  are  an  inhabitant  of  the  o  ler 
world  they  will  not  take  care  of  them?  Nay;  but  if 
they  who  call  themselves  friends  are  truly  friends, 

they  surely  will.  ,  ,  . 

“  Listen,  then,  Socrates,  to  us  who  have  brought 

you  up.  Think  not  of  life  and  children  first,  and  of 


CRITO 


157 


justice  afterwards,  but  of  justice  first,  that  you  may 
be  justified  before  the  princes  of  the  world  below. 
For  neither  will  you  nor  any  that  belong  to  you  be 
,  happier  or  holier  or  juster  in  this  life,  or  happier  in 
I  another,  if  you  do  as  Crito  bids.  Now  you  depart  in 
innocence,  a  sufferer  and  not  a  doer  of  evil;  a  victim, 
not  of  the  laws,  but  of  men.  But  if  you  go  forth, 
returning  evil  for  evil,  and  injury  for  injury,  breaking 
the  covenants  and  agreements  which  you  have  made 
with  us,  and  wronging  those  whom  you  ought  least 
to  wrong,  that  is  to  say,  yourself,  your  friends,  your 
country,  and  us,  we  shall  be  angry  with  you  while  you 
live,  and  our  brethren,  the  laws  in  the  world  below, 
will  receive  you  as  an  enemy;  for  they  will  know  that 
you  have  done  your  best  to  destroy  us.  Listen,  then, 
to  us  and  not  to  Crito.” 

This  is  the  voice  which  I  seem  to  hear  murmuring  in 
my  ears,  like  the  sound  of  the  flute  in  the  ears  of  the 
mystic;  that  voice,  I  say,  is  humming  in  my  ears,  and 
prevents  me  from  hearing  any  other.  And  I  know 
that  anything  more  which  you  may  say  will  be  vain. 
Yet  speak,  if  you  have  anything  to  say. 

Cr.  I  have  nothing  to  say,  Socrates. 

Soc.  Then  let  me  follow  the  intimations  of  the  will 
of  God. 


PHAEDO 


INTRODUCTION 


After  an  interval  of  some  months  or  years,  and  at  Phlius  a 
town  of  Sicyon,  the  tale  of  the  last  hours  of  Socrates  is  narrated 
to  Echecrates  and  other  Phliasians  by  Phaedo  the  “  beloved  dis¬ 
ciple.”  The  Dialogue  necessarily  takes  the  form  of  a  narrative, 
because  Socrates  has  to  be  described  acting  as  well  as  speaking. 
The  minutest  particulars  of  the  event  are  interesting  to  distant 
friends,  and  the  narrator  has  an  equal  interest  in  them. 

During  the  voyage  of  the  sacred  ship  to  and  from  Delos, 
which  has  occupied  thirty  days,  the  execution  of  Socrates  has 
been~ deferred  C^P*  Xen.  Mem.  iv.  8.  2.)  The  time  has  been 
passed  by  him  in  conversation  with  a  select  company  of  disciples. 
But  now  the  holy  season  is  over,  and  the  disciples  meet  earlier 
than  usual  in  order  that  they  may  converse  with  Socrates  for  the 
last  time.  Those  who  were  present,  and  those  who  might  have 
been  expected  to  be  present,  are  specially  mentioned.  There  are 
Simmias  and  Cebes,  two  disciples  of  Philolaus  whom  Socrates 
“  by  his  enchantments  has  attracted  from  Thebes  ”  (Mem.  iii.  11. 
17),  Crito  the  aged  friend,  the  attendant  of  the  prison,  who  is 
as  good  as  a  friend  —  these  take  part  in  the  conversation.  There 
are  present  also,  Hermogenes,  from  whom  Xenophon  derived  his 
information  about  the  trial  of  Socrates  (Mem.  iv.  8.  4),  the 
“  madman  ”  Apollodorus,  Euclid  and  Terpsion  from  Megara, 
Ctesippus,  Antisthenes,  Menexenus,  and  some  other  less-known 
members  of  the  Socratic  circle,  all  of  whom  are  silent  auditors. 
Aristippus  and  Plato  are  noted  as  absent.  Soon  the  wife  and 
children  of  Socrates  are  sent  away,  under  the  direction  of  Crito; 
he  himself  has  just  been  released  from  chains,  and  is  led  by  this 
circumstance  to  make  the  natural  remark  that  “  pleasure  follows 
pain.”  (Observe  that  Plato  is  preparing  the  way  for  his  doctrine 
of  the  alternation  of  opposites.)  “  Aesop  would  have  represented 
them  in  a  fable  as  a  two-headed  creature  of  the  gods.”  The 
mention  of  Aesop  reminds  Cebes  of  a  question  which  had  been 
asked  by  Evenus  the  poet:  “  Why  Socrates,  who  was  not  a  poet, 
while  in  prison  had  been  putting  Aesop  into  verse?  ”  —  “  Because 
several  times  in  his  life  he  had  been  warned  in  dreams  that  he 
should  make  music;  and  as  he  was  about  to  die  and  was  not 

161 


162 


i 


PHAEDO 


certain  what  was  the  meaning  of  this,  he  wished  to  fulfil  the 
admonition  in  the  letter  as  well  as  in  the  spirit,  by  writing  verses 
as  well  as  by  cultivating  philosophy.  Tell  Evenus  this  and  bid 
him  follow  me  in  death.”  “  He  is  not  the  sort  of  man  to  do  that, 
Socrates.”  “  Why,  is  he  not  a  philosopher?  Yes.  Then 
he  will  be  willing  to  die,  although  he  will  not  take  his  own  life, 

for  that  is  held  not  to  be  right.” 

Cebes  asks  why  men  say  that  suicide  is  not  right,  if  death  is 
to  be  accounted  a  good?  Well,  (1)  according  to  one  explanation, 
because  man  is  a  prisoner,  and  is  not  allowed  to  open  the  door 
of  his  prison  and  run  away  —  this  is  the  truth  in  a  mystery. 

Or  rather,  perhaps,  (2)  because  man  is  not  his  own  property, 
but  a  possession  of  the  gods,  and  he  has  no  right  to  make  away 
with  that  which  does  not  belong  to  him.  But  why,  asks  Cebes, 
if  he  is  a  possession  of  the  gods,  will  he  wish  to  die  and  leave 
them?  for  he  is  under  their  protection;  and  surely  he  can  not 
take  better  care  of  himself  than  they  take  of  him.  Simmias 
explains  that  Cebes  is  really  referring  to  Socrates,  whom  they 
think  too  unmoved  at  the  prospect  of  leaving  the  gods  and  his 
friends.  Socrates  answers  that  he  is  going  to  other  gods  who 
are  wise  and  good,  and  perhaps  to  better  friends ;  and  he  pro 
fesses  that  he  is  ready  Jto  defend  himself  against  the  charge  of 
Cebes.  They  shall  be  his  judges,  and  he  hopes  that  he  will  be 
more  successful  in  convincing  them  than  he  had  been  in  convin¬ 
cing  the  court.  ... 

The  philosopher  desires  death  —  which  the  wicked  world  will 

insinuate  that  he  also  deserves:  and  perhaps  he  does,  but  not  in 
any  sense  which  they  are  capable  of  understanding.  Enough  of 
them:  the  real  question  is,  What  is  the  nature  of  that  death  which 
he  desires?  Death  is  the  separation  of  soul  and  body  and 
the  philosopher  desires  such  a  separation..  He  would  like  to  be 
freed  from  the  dominion  of  bodily  pleasures  and  of  the  senses, 
which  are  always  perturbing  his  mental  vision.  He  wants  to  get 
rid  of  eyes  and  ears,  and  with  the  light  of  the  mind  only  to 
behold  the  light  of  truth.  All  the  evils  and  impurities  and  neces¬ 
sities  of  men  come  from  the  body.  And  death  separates  him 
from  these  evils,  which  in  this  life  he  can  not  wholly  cast  aside 
Why  then  should  he  repine  when  the  hour  of  separation  arrives . 
Why,  if  he  is  dead  while  he  lives,  should  he  fear  that  other 
death,  through  which  alone  he  can  behold  wisdom  in  her  purity . 

Besides,  the  philosopher  has  notions  of  good  and  evil  unlike 
those  of  other  men.  For  they  are  courageous  because  they  are 
afraid  of  greater  dangers,  and  temperate  because  they  desire 


INTRODUCTION 


163 


greater  pleasures.  But  he  disdains  this  balancing  of  pleasures 
and  pains ;  he  knows  no  virtue  but  that  which  is  the  companion 
of  wisdom.  All  the  virtues,  including  wisdom,  are  regarded  by 
him  only  as  purifications  of  the  soul.  And  this  was  the  meaning 
of  the  founders  of  the  mv.»ceries  when  they  said,  “Many  are 
the  wand-bearers  but  few  are  the  mystics. ”  (Cp.  Matt.  xxii.  14: 

“  Many  are  called,  but"  few  are  chosen/’)  And  in  the  hope  that 
he  is  one  of  these  mystics,  Socrates  is  now  departing.  This  is 
his  answer  to  th^'e  who  charge  him  with  indifference  at  the 
prospect  Ox  leaving  the  gods  and  his  friends. 

Still,  a  fear  is  expressed  that  the  soul  upon  leaving  the  body, 
paay  vanish  away  like  smoke  or  air.  Socrates  in  answer  appeals 
first  of  all  to  the  old  Orphic  tradition  that  the  souls  of  the  dead 
are  in  the  world  below,  and  that  the  living  come  from  them.  / 
This  he  attempts  to  found  on  a  philosophical  assumption  that 
all  opposites  —  e.  g.  less,  greater ;  weaker,  stronger ;  sleeping, 
waking;  life,  death  —  are  generated  out  of  each  others  Nor 
can  this  process  of  generation  be  only  a  passage  from  living  to 
dying,  for  then  all  would  end  in  death.  The  perpetual  sleeper 
(Endymion)  would  be  no  longer  distinguished,  for  all  the  world 
would  sink  in  rest.  The  circle  of  nature  is  not  complete  unless 
the  living  come  from  the  dead  as  well  as  pass  to  them. 

The  favorite  Platonic  doctrine  of  reminiscence  is  then  adduced 
as  a  confirmation  of  the  preexistence  of  the  soul.  Some  proofs 
of  this  doctrine  are  demanded.  One  proof  given  is  the  same  as 
that  of  the  Meno,  and  is  derived  from  the  latent  knowledge  of 
mathematics,  which  may  be  elicited  from  an  unlearned  person 
when  a  diagram  is  presented  to  him.  Again,  there  is  a  power  of 
association,  which  from  seeing  Simmias  may  remember  Cebes,  or 
from  seeing  a  picture  of  Simmias  may  remember  Simmias.  The 
lyre  may  recall  the  player  of  the  lyre,  and  equal  pieces  of  wood 
or  stone  may  be  associated  with  the  higher  notion  of  absolute 
equality.  But  here  observe  that  material  equalities  fall  short 
of  the  conception  of  absolute  equality  with  which  they  are  com¬ 
pared,  and  which  is  the  measure  of  them.  And  the  measure  or 
standard  must  be  prior  to  that  which  is  measured,  the  idea  of 
equality  prior  to  the  visible  equals.  And  if  prior  to  them,  then 
prior  also  to  the  perceptions  of  the  senses  which  recall  them, 
and  therefore  either  given  before  birth  or  at  birth.  But  all  men 
have  not  this  knowledge,  nor  have  any  without  a  process  of 
reminiscence;  and  this  is  a  proof  that  it  is  not  innate  or  given 
at  birth  (unless  indeed  it  was  given  and  taken  away  at  the  same 
instant,  which  is  absurd).  But  if  not  given  to  men  in  birth,  it 


164 


PHAEDO 


must  have  been  given  before  birth  —  this  is  the  only  alternative 
which  remains.  And  if  we  had  ideas  in  a  former  state,  then  our 
souls  must  have  existed  and  must  have  had  intelligence  in  a 
former  state.  The  preexistence  cf  the  soul  stands  or  falls  with 
the  doctrine  of  ideas. 

It  is  objected  by  Simmias  and  Cebes  that  these  arguments 
only  prove  a  former  and  not  a  future  existence.  Socrates 
answers  this  objection  by  recalling  the  previous  argument,  in 
which  he  had  shown  that  the  living  had  come  from  the  dead.  But 
the  fear  that  the  soul  at  departing  may  vanish  into  air  (espe¬ 
cially  if  there  is  a  wind  blowing  at  the  time)  has  not  yet  been 
charmed  away.  He  proceeds!  When  we  fear  that  the  soul  will 
vanish  away,  let  us  ask  ourselves  what  is  that  which  we  suppose 
to  be  liable  to  dissolution?  Is  it  the  simple  or  the  compound, 
the  unchanging  or  the  changing,  the  invisible  idea  or  the  visible 
object  of  sense?  Clearly  the  latter  and  not  the  former;  and 
therefore  not  the  soul,  which  in  her  own  pure  thought  is  un¬ 
changeable,  and  only  when  using  the  senses  descends  into  the 
region  of  change.  Again,  the  soul  commands,  the  body  ser\  es . 
in  this  respect  too  the  soul  is  akin  to  the  divine,  and  the  body  to 
the  mortal.  And  in  every  point  of  view  the  soul  is  the  image  of 
divinity  and  immortality,  and  the  body  of  the  human  and  mortal. 
And  whereas  the  body  is  liable  to  speedy  dissolution,  the  soul 
is  almost  if  not  quite  indissoluble.  Yet  even  the  body  may  be 
preserved  for  ages  by  the  embalmer  s  artj^how  much  more  the 
soul  returning  into  herself  on  her  way  to  the  good  and  wise 
God !  \  She  has  been  practising  death  all  her  life  long,  and  is 
now  finally  released  from  the  errors  and  follies  and  passions  of 
men,  and  forever  dwells  in  the  company  of  the  gods. 

But  the  soul  which  is  polluted  and  engrossed  by  the  corporeal, 
and  has  no  eye  except  that  of  the  senses,  and  is  weighed  down 
by  the  bodily  appetites,  can  not  attain  to  this  abstraction.  In 
her  fear  of  the  world  below  she  lingers  about  her  sepulchre,  a 
ghostly  apparition,  saturated  with  sense,  and  therefore  visible. 
At  length  she  enters  into  the  body  of  some  animal  of  a  nature 
congenial  to  her  former  life  of  sensuality  or  violence,  and  be¬ 
comes  an  ass  or  a  wolf  or  a  kite.  And  of  these  earthly  souls 
the  happiest  are  those  who  have  practised  virtue  without 
philosophy ;  they  are  allowed  to  pass  into  gentle  and  civil 
natures,  such  as  bees  and  ants.  But  only  the  philosopher  who 
departs  pure  is  permitted  to  enter  the  company  of  the  gods. 
This  is  the  reason  why  he  abstains  from  fleshly  lusts,  and  not 
from  the  fear  of  loss  or  disgrace,  which  are  the  motives  of  other 


INTRODUCTION 


165 


men.  He  too  has  been  a  captive,  and  the  willing  agent  of  his 
own  captivity.  But  philosophy  has  spoken  to  him,  and  he  has 
heard  her  voice;  she  has  gently  entreated  him,  and  brought  his 
soul  out  of  the  “  miry  clay/’  and  purged  away  the  mists  of 
passion  and  the  illusions  of  sense  which  envelope  her,  and  taught 
her  to  resist  the  influence  of  pleasures  and  pains,  which  are  like 
nails  fastening  her  to  the  body.  To  that  prison-house  she  will 
not  return;  and  therefore  she  abstains  from  bodily  pleasures  — 
not  from  a  desire  of  having  more  or  greater  ones,  which  is  the 
exchange  of  commerce  and  not  of  virtue,  but  because  she  knows 
that  only  in  the  calm  of  pleasures  and  passions  she  will  behold 
the  light  of  truth. 

Simmias  and  Cebes  remain  in  doubt;  but  they  are  unwilling 
to  raise  objections  at  such  a  time.  Socrates  wonders  at  this. 
Let  them  regard  him  rather  as  the  swan,  who,  having  sung  the 
praises  of  Apollo  all  his  life  long,  sings  at  his  death  more 
lustily  than  ever.  Simmias  acknowledges  that  there  is  cow¬ 
ardice  in  not  probing  truth  to  the  bottom.  “  And  if  truth 
divine  and  inspired  is  not  to  be  had,  then  let  a  man  take  the  best 
of  human  notions,  and  upon  this  frail  bark  let  him  sail  through 
life.”  He  proceeds  to  state  his  difficulty:  It  has  been  argued 
that  the  soul  is  invisible  and  incorporeal,  and  therefore  immortal, 
and  prior  to  theHioclyl  But  is  not  the  soul  acknowledged  to  be 
a  harmony,  and  has  she  not  the  same  relation  to  the  body,  as 
the  harmony  —  which  like  her  is  invisible  —  has  to  the  lyre  ? 
And  yet  the  harmony  does  not  survive  the  lyre.  Cebes  has  also 
an  objection,  which  like  Simmias  he  expresses  in  a  figure.  He 
is  willing  to  admit  that  the  soul  is  more  lasting  than  the  body. 
But  the  more  lasting  nature  .of  the  soul  does  not  prove  her  im¬ 
mortality;  for  after  having  worn  out  many  bodies  in  a  single 
life,  and  many  more  in  successive  births  and  deaths,  she  may  at 
last  perish,  or,  as  Socrates  afterwards  restates  the  objection,  the 
very  act  of  birth  may  be  the  beginning  of  her  death,  and  the  last 
body  may  survive  the  last  soul,  just  as  the  coat  of  an  old  weaver 
is  left  behind  him  after  he  is  dead,  although  a  man  is  more  last¬ 
ing  than  his  coat.  And  he  who  would  prove  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  must  prove  not  only  that  the  soul  outlives  one  or  many 
bodies,  but  that  she  outlives  them  all.  ««« 

The  audience,  like  the  chorus  in  a  play,  for  a  moment  inter¬ 
pret  the  feelings  of  the  actors ;  there  is  a  temporary  depression, 
and  then  the  inquiry  is  resumed.  It  is  a  melancholy  reflection 
that  arguments,  like  men,  are  apt  to  be  deceivers ;  and  those  who 
have  been  often  deceived  become  distrustful  both  of  arguments 


I 


166 


PHAEDO 


and  of  friends.  But  this  unfortunate  experience  should  not 
make  us  either  haters  of  men  or  haters  of  arguments.  The 
hatred  of  arguments  is  equally  mistaken,  whether  we  are  going 
to  live  or  die.  At  the  approach  of  death  Socrates  desires  to  be 
impartial,  and  yet  he  can  not  help  feeling  that  he  has  too  great 
an  interest  in  the  truth  of  his  own  argument.  And  therefore  he 
wishes  his  friends  to  examine  and  refute  him,  if  they  think 
that  he  is  not  speaking  the  truth. 

Socrates  requests  Simmias  and  Cebes  to  state  their  objections 
again.  They  do  not  go  to  the  length  of  denying  the  preexist¬ 
ence  of  ideas.  Simmias  is  of  opinion  that  the  soul  is  a  harmony 
of  the  body.  But  the  admission  of  the  preexistence  of  ideas, 
and  therefore  of  the  soul,  is  at  variance  with  this.  For  a 
harmony  is  an  effect,  whereas  the  soul  is  not  an  effect,  but  a 
cause ;  a  harmony  follows,  but  the  soul  leads ;  a  harmony  admits 
of  degrees,  and  the  soul  has  no  degrees.  Again,  upon  the  sup¬ 
position  that  the  soul  is  a  harmony,  why  is  one  soul  better  than 
another?  Are  they  more  or  less  harmonized,  or  is  there  one 
harmony  within  another?  But  the  soul  does  not  admit  of 
degrees,  and  can  not  therefore  be  more  or  less  harmonized. 
Further,  the  soul  is  often  engaged  in  resisting  the  affections  of 
the  body,  as  Homer  describes  Odysseus  “  rebuking  his  heart.” 
Could  he  have  written  this  under  the  idea  that  the  soul  is  a 
harmony  of  the  body?  Nay  rather,  are  we  not  contradicting 
Homer  and  ourselves  in  affirming  anything  of  the  sort? 

The  goddess  Harmonia,  as  Socrates  playfully  terms  the  argu¬ 
ment  of  Simmias,  has  been  happily  disposed  of;  and  now  an 
answer  has  to  be  given  to  the  Theban  Cadmus.  Socrates  re¬ 
capitulates  the  argument  of  Cebes,  which,  as  he  remarks, 
involves  the  whole  question  of  natural  growth  or  causation , 
about  this  he  proposes  to  narrate  his  own  mental  experience. 
When  he  was  young  he  had  puzzled  himself  with  physics:  he 
had  inquired  into  the  growth  and  decay  of  animals,  and  the 
origin  of  thought,  until  at  last  he  began  to  doubt  the  self- 
evident  fact  that  growth  is  the  result  of  eating  and  drinking, 
and  thus  he  arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  he  was  not  meant  for 
such  inquiries.  Nor  was  he  less  perplexed  with  notions  of  com¬ 
parison  and  number.  At  first  he  had  imagined  himself  to  under¬ 
stand  differences  of  greater  and  less,  and  to  know  that  ten  is 
two  more  than  eight,  and  the  like.  But  now  those  very  notions 
appeared  to  him  to  contain  a  contradiction.  For  how  can  one 
be  divided  into  two  ?  or  two  be  compounded  into  one  ?  These  are 
difficulties  which  Socrates  can  not  answer.  „  Of  generation  and 


INTRODUCTION 


167 


destruction  he  knows  nothing.  But  he  has  a  confused  notion  of 

another  method  in  which  matters  of  this  sort  are  to  be  investi¬ 
gated. 

Then  he  heard  some  one  reading  out  of  a  book  of  Anaxagoras, 
that  mind  is  the  cause  of  all  things.  And  he  said  to  himself:  If 
mil  '  is  the  cause  of  all  things,  mind  must  dispose  them  all  for 
the  best.  The  new  teacher  will  show  me  this  “  order  of  the 
best  ”  in  man  and  nature.  How  great  had  been  his  hopes  and 
how  great  his  disappointment!  For  he  found  that  his  new 
friend  was  anything  but  consistent  in  his  use  of  mind  as  a  cause, 
and  that  he  soon  introduced  winds,  waters,  and  other  eccentric 
notions.  It  was  as  if  a  person  had  said  that  Socrates  is  sitting 
here  because  he  is  made  up  of  bones  and  muscles,  instead  of 
telling  the  true  reason  that  he  is  here  because  the  Athenians 
have  thought  good  to  sentence  him  to  death,  and  he  has  thought 
good  to  await  his  sentence.  Had  his  bones  and  muscles  been 
left  by  him  to  their  own  ideas  of  right,  they  would  long  ago 
have  taken  themselves  off.  But  surely  there  is  a  great  confusion 
of  the  cause  and  condition  in  all  this.  And  this  confusion  also 
leads  people  into  all  sorts  of  erroneous  theories  about  the  position 
and  motions  of  the  earth.  None  of  know  how  much  stronger 
than  any  Atlas  is  the  power  of  the  best.  But  this  “  best  ”  is  still 
undiscovered ;  and  in  inquiring  after  the  cause,  we  can  only  hope 
to  attain  the  second  best. 

Now  there  is  a  danger  in  the  contemplation  of  the  nature  of 
things,  as  there  is  a  danger  in  looking  at  the  sun  during 
an  eclipse,  unless  the  precaution  is  taken  of  looking  only  at  the 
image  reflected  in  the  water,  or  in  a  glass.  And  I  was  afraid, 
says  Socrates,  that  I  might  injure  the  eye  of  the  soul.  I  thought 
that  I  had  better  return  to  the  old  and  safe  method  of  ideas. 
Though  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  he  who  contemplates  existence 
through  the  medium  of  ideas  sees  only  through  a  glass  darkly, 
any  more  than  he  who  contemplates  actual  effects. 

I Lthe  existence  of  ideas  is  granted  to  him,  Socrates  is  of  opin¬ 
ion  that  he  will  then  have  no  difficulty  in  proving  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  He  will  only  ask  for  a  further  admission:  —  that 
beauty  is  the  cause  of  the  beautiful,  greatness  the  cause  of  the 
great,  smallness  of  the  small,  and  so  on  of  other  things.  Thus 
he  avoids  the  contradictions  of  greater  and  less  (greater  by  rea¬ 
son  of  that  which  is  smaller!),  of  addition  and  subtraction,  and 
the  other  difficulties  of  relation.  These  subtleties  he  is  for 
leaving  to  wise*  heads  than  his  own;  he  prefers  to  test  ideas  by 
their  consequer  ces,  and,  if  asked  to  give  an  account  of  them,  goes 


168 


PHAEDO 


back  to  some  Higher  idea  or  hypothesis  which  appears  to  him  to 
be  the  best,  until  at  last  he  arrives  at  a  resting-place. 

The  doctrine  of  ideas,  which  has  long  ago  received  the  assent 
of  the  Socratic  circle,  is  now  affirmed  by  the  Phliasian  auditor  to 
command  the  assent  of  any  men  of  sense.  The  narrative  is  con¬ 
tinued;  Socrates  is  desirous  of  explaining  how  opposite  ideas 
may  appear  to  coexist  but  do  not  really  coexist  in  the  same  thing 
or  person.  For  example,  Simmias  may  be  said  to  have  greatness 
and  also  smallness,  because  he  is  greater  than  Socrates  and  less 
than  Phaedo.  And  yet  Simmias  is  not  really  great  and  also 
small  but  only  when  compared  to  Phaedo  and  Socrates.  I  use 
the  illustration,  says  Socrates,  because  I  want  to  show  you  not 
only  that  ideal  opposites  exclude  one  another,  but  also  the  op¬ 
posites  in  us.  I,  for  example,  having  the  attribute  of  smallness 
remain  small,  and  can  not  become  great:  the  smallness  in  me 

drives  out  greatness.  .  .  .  . 

One  of  the  company  here  remarked  that  this  was  inconsistent 

with  the  old  assertion  that  .dpposites  generated  opposites.  But 
that,  replies  Socrates,  was  affixed,  not  of  opposite  ideas  either 
in  us  or  in  nature,  but  of  opposite  things  —  not  of  Me  and  death, 
but  of  individuals  living  aWMdying.  When  this  objection  has 
been  removed,  Socrates  proSfds:  This  doctrine  of  the  mutual 
exclusion  of  opposites  is  not  only  true  of  the  opposites  them¬ 
selves,  but  of  things  whiA.are  inseparable  from  them,  tor  ex¬ 
ample,  cold  and  heat  are  opposed ;  and  fire,  which  is  inseparable 
from  heat,  can  not  coiaust  with  cold,  or  snow,  which  is  insepa¬ 
rable  from  cold,  with  Vat.  Again,  the  number  three  excludes 
the  number  four,  because  three  is  an  odd  number  and  four  is  an 
even  number,  and  the  odd  is  opposed  to  the  even.  Thus  we  are 
able  to  proceed  a  step  beyond  “the  safe  and  simple  answer 
We  may  say,  not  only  that  the  odd  excludes  the  even  but  that 
the  number  three,  which  participates  m  oddness,  excludes  th® 
even.  And  in  like  manner,  not  only  does  life  exclude  death  but 
the  soul,  of  which  life  is  the  inseparable  attribute,  also  excludes 
death.  And  that  of  which  life  is  the  inseparable  attribute  is  by 
the  force  of  the  terms  imperishable.  If  the  odd  principle  nere 
imperishable,  then  the  number  three  would  not  perish,  but  re¬ 
move  on  the  approach  of  the  even  principle  But  the  immortal 
is  imperishable ;  and  therefore  the  soul  on  the  approach  of  death 

does  not  perish  but  removes.  .  , 

Thus  all  objections  appear  to  be  finally  silenced.  n  now 
the  application  has  to  be  made:  If  the  soul  is  im  mortal,  what 
manner  of  persons  ought  we  to  be?  ”  having  rega.  i  not  only  to 


INTRODUCTION 


169 


time  but  to  eternity.  For  death  is  not  the  end  of  all,  and  the 
wicked  is  not  released  from  his  evil  by  death;  but  every  one 
carries  with  him  into  the  world  below  that  which  he  is  and  that 
which  he  becomes,  and  that  only. 

For  after  death  the  soul  is  carried  away  to  judgment,  and 
when  she  has  received  her  punishment  returns  to  earth  in  the 
course  of  ages.  The  wise  soul  is  conscious  of  her  situation,  and 
follows  the  attendant  angel  who  guides  her  through  the  windings 
of  the  world  below ;  but  the  impure  soul  wanders  hither  and 
thither  without  a  guide,  and  is  carried  at  last  to  her  own  place, 
as  the  pure  soul  is  also  carried  away  to  hers.  “  In  order  that  you 
may  understand  this,  I  must  first  describe  to  you  the  nature  and 
conformation  of  the  earth.” 

Now  the  whole  earth  is  a  globe  placed  in  the  centre  of  the 
heavens,  and  is  maintained  there  by  the  perfection  of  balance. 
That  which  we  call  the  earth  is  only  a  small  hollow,  of  which 
there  are  many;  but  the  true  earth  is  above,  and  is  a  finer  "and 
subtler  element,  and  is  full  of  pU$bious  stones  and  bright  colors, 
of  which  the  stones  and  colors  in  our  earth  are  but  fragments 
and  reflections,  and  the  earth  itself  is  corroded  and  crusted  over 
just  as  the  shore  is  by  the  sea.  And  if,  like  birds,  we  could  fly  to 
the  surface  of  the  air,  in  the  same  manner  that  fishes  come  to  the 
top  of  the  sea,  then  we  should  behold  the  true  earth  and  the  true 
heaven  and  the  true  stars.  This  heavenly  earth  is  of  divers 
colors,  sparkling  with  jewels  brighter  than  gold  and  whiter  than 
any  snow,  having  flowers  and  fruits  innumerable.  And  the  in¬ 
habitants  dwell  some  on  the  shore  of  the  sea  of  air,  others  in 
“  islets  of  the  blest,”  and  they  hold  converse  with  the  gods,  and 
behold  the  sun,  moon  and  stars  as  they  truly  are,  and  their  other 
blessedness  is  of  a  piece  with  this. 

But  the  interior  of  the  earth  has  other  and  deeper  hollows,  and 
one  huge  chasm  or  opening  called  Tartarus,  into  which  vast 
streams  of  water  and  fire  are  ever  flowing  to  and  fro,  of  which 
small  portions  find  their  way  to  the  surface  and  form  seas  and 
rivers  and  volcanoes.  There  is  perpetual  inhalation  and  exha¬ 
lation  of  the  air  rising  and  falling  as  the  waters  pass  into  the 
depths  of  the  earth  and  return  again,  in  their  course  forming 
lakes  and  rivers,  but  never  descending  below  the  centre  of  the 
earth,  the  opposite  side  of  which  is  a  precipice  to  the  rivers  on 
both  sides.  The  rivers  are  many  and  mighty,  and  there  are  four 
principal  ones,  Oceanus,  Acheron,  Pyriphlegethon,  and  Cocytus. 
Oceanus  is  the  river  which  encircles  the  earth ;  Acheron  takes  an 
opposite  direction,  and  after  flowing  under  the  earth  and  in 


170 


PHAEDO 


desert  places  at  last  reaches  the  Acherus.an  lake,  and  this  s  he 
river  at  which  the  dead  await  their  return  to  earth  Pynphle 
gethon  is  a  stream  of  fire,  which  coils  around  the  earth  and  flows 
into  the  depths  of  Tartarus.  The  fourth  river  (Cocytus)  is  that 
which  is  called  by  the  poets  the  Stygian  river,  and  falls  into  and 
forms  the  lake  Styx,  receiving  strange  powers  in  the  waters.  1 

river  too,  f 3.11s  into  T3.rt9.rus.  .  ,  ,  ,1 

The  dead  are  first  of  all  judged  according  to  their  deeds,  and 

those  who  are  incurable  are  thrust  into  Tartarus,  from  which 

they  never  come  out.  Those  who  have  only  committed  venial  sins 

are  first  purified  of  them,  and  then  rewarded  for  the  good  which 

they  haveP done.  Those  who  have  committed  crimes,  great  indeed 

but  not  unpardonable,  are  thrust  into  Tartarus,  but  are  cast 

forth  at  the  end  of  the  year  on  the  shores  of  the  rivers,  w  er 

they  stand  crying  to  their  victims  to  let  them  come  out,  and  t 

tey  prevail,  thef  they  arelet  out  and  their  sufferings  cease;  if 
tney  pic  J  j  whirl  alone-  the  rivers  of 


not,  they  are  borne  in 
Tartarus.  The  pure  s<j 
their  abode  in  the  uppe 
“  mansions.” 

Socrates  is  not  prep 
this  description,  but  he 
true.  He  who  has  sou 


seless  whirl  along  the  rivers  of 
receive  their  reward,  and  have 
and  a  select  few  in  still  fairer 


,  insist  on  the  literal  accuracy  of 
[dent  that  something  of  the  kind  is 
true  He  who  has  song— er  the  pleasures  of  knowledge  and 
rejected  the  pleasures  of  the  body,  has  reason  to  be  of good  hope 
aAhe  approach  of  death,  whfielyoice  is  already  heard  calling 

him  and  will  be  heard  calilraj7  all  men.  .  . 

The  hour  has  come  at  whlife  must  drink  the  poison  and  not 
much  remains  to  be  done.  How  shall  they  bury  him?  That  is  a 
Question  which  he  refuses  to  entertain,  for  they  are  not  jurying 
him,  but  his  dead  body.  His  friends  had  once  been  Reties ‘hat 
heWbuld  remain,  and  they  shall  now  be  sureties  that  he  has  run 
awav  Yet  he  would  not  die  without  the  customary  ceremonies 
of  washing  and  burial.  Shall  he  make  a  libation  of  the  poison^ 
In  the  spirit  he  will,  but  not  in  the  letter.  ne  ^equ 
in  the  very  act  of.  death,  which  has  been  a  puzzle  to  after  ages. 
The  puzzle  has  been  occasioned  by  the  simplicity  o  1S  wor ’ 
for  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  have  any  hiddenmean- 
ing  With  a  sort  of  irony  he  remembers  that  a  tnfl  »  ? 

duty  is  still  unfulfilled,  just  as  above  he  is  represented l  “  Jesu^iL 
before  he  departs  to  make  a  few  verses  m  order  to  satisfy  a 

scruple  about  the  meaning  of  a  dream. 

1  The  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  .soul  has  sue  a  gre 
interest  for  all  mankind  that  they  are  apt  to  rebel  agaijist  any 


INTRODUCTION 


171 


examination  of  the  nature  of  their  belief.  They  do  not  like  to 
acknowledge  that  this,  as  well  as  the  other  “  eternal  ideas  ”  of 
man,  has  a  history  in  time,  which  may  be  traced  in  Greek  poetry 
or  philosophy,  and  also  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  They  convert 
feeling  into  reasoning,  and  throw  a  network  of  dialectics  over 
that  which  is  really  a  deeply-rooted  instinct.  In  the  same  tem¬ 
per  which  Socrates  reproves  in  himself  they  are  disposed  to 
think  that  even  bad  arguments  will  do  no  harm,  for  they  will  die 
with  them,  and  while  they  live  they  will  gain  by  the  delusion. 
But  there  is  a  better  and  higher  spirit  to  be  gathered  from 
the  Phaedo,  as  well  as  from  the  other  writings  of  Plato,  which 
says  that  first  principles  should  be  most  constantly  reviewed, 
and  that  the  highest  subjects  demand  of  us  the  greatest  accur¬ 
acy. 

2.  Modern  philosophy  is  perplexed  at  this  whole  question, 
which  is  sometimes  fairly  given  up  and  handed  over  to  the  realm 
of  faith.  The  perplexity  should  not  be  forgotten  by  us  when  we 
attempt  to  submit  the  Phaedo  of  Plato  to  the  requirements  of 
logic.  For  what  idea  can  we  form  of  the  soul  when  separated 
from  the  body?  Or  how  can  the  soul  be  united  with  the  body 
and  still  be  independent?  'Is  the  soul  related  to  the  body  as  the 
ideal  to  the  real,  or  as  the  whole  to  the  parts,  or  as  the  subject 
to  the  object,  or  as  the  cause  to  the  effect,  or  as  the  end  to  the 
means?  Shall  we  say  with  Aristotle,  that  the  soul  is  the  ente- 
lechy  or  form  of  an  organized  living  body?  or  with  Plato,  that 
she  has  a  life  of  her  own?  Is  the  Pythagorean  image  of  the 
harmony,  or  of  the  monad,  the  truer  expression?  Is  the  soul 
related  to  the  body  as  sight  to  the  eye,  or  as  the  boatman  to  his 
boat?  -  And  in  another  state  of  being  is  the  soul  to  be  conceived 
of  as  vanishing  into  infinity,  hardly  possessing  an  existence  which 
she  can  call  her  own,  as  in  the  pantheistic  system  of  Spinoza 
and  others?  or  as  an  individual  spirit  informed  with  another 
body  and  retaining  the  impress  of  her  former  character?  Or  is 
the  opposition  of  soul  and  body  a  mere  illusion,  and  the  true  self 
neither  soul  nor  body,  but  the  union  of  the  two  in  the  “  I  ”  which 
is  above  them?  And  is  death  the  assertion  of  this  individuality 
in  the  higher  nature,  and  the  falling  away  into  nothingness  of 
the  lower?  Or  are  we  vainly  attempting  to  pass  the  boundaries 
of  human  thought?  The  body  and  the  soul  seem  to  be  insep¬ 
arable,  not  only  in  fact,  but  in  our  conceptions  of  them;  and 
any  philosophy  which  too  closely  unites  them,  or  too  widely  sep¬ 
arates  them,  either  in  this  life  or  in  another,  disturbs  the  balance 
of  human  nature.  Neither  Plato  nor  any  other  philosopher  has 


172 


PHAEDO 


perfectly  adjusted  them,  or  been  perfectly  consistent  with  him 
self  in  describing  their  relation  to  one  another. 

3.  Again,  believing  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  we  must 
still  ask  the  question  of  Socrates,  “  what  is  that  which  we  sup¬ 
pose  to  be  immortal?  ”  Is  it  the  personal  and  individual  element 
in  us,  or  the  spiritual  and  universal?  Is  it  the  principle  of 
knowledge  or  of  goodness,  or  the  union  of  the  two?  Is  it  the 
mere  force  of  life  which  is  determined  to  be,  or  the  consciousness 
of  self  which  can  not  be  got  rid  of,  or  the  fire  of  genius  which 
refuses  to  be  extinguished?  Or  is  there  a  hidden  being  which 
is  allied  to  the  Author  of  all  existence,  who  is  because  he  is  per¬ 
fect,  and  to  whom  our  ideas  of  perfection  give  us  a  title  to  be¬ 
long?  Whatever  answer  is  given  by  us  to  these  questions,  there 
still  remains  the  necessity  of  allowing  the  permanence  of  evil 
if  not  forever,  at  any  rate  for  a  time,  in  order  that  the  wicked 
“  may  not  have  too  good  a  bargain.”  For  the  annihilation  of 
evil  at  death,  or  the  eternal  duration  of  it,  seem  to  involve  equal 
difficulties  in  the  moral  order  of  the  universe.  Sometimes  we  are 
led  by  our  feelings,  rather  than  by  our  reason,  to  think  of  the 
good  and  wise  only  as  existing  in  another  life.  Why  should  the 
mean,  the  weak,  the  idiot,  the  infant,  the  herd  of  men  who  have 
never  in  any  proper  sense  the  use  of  reason,  reappear  with  blink 
ing  eyes  in' the  light  of  another  world?  But  our  second  thougnt 
is  that  the  hope  of  humanity  is  a  common  one,  and  that  all  or 
none  have  a  right  to  immortality.  Reason  does  not  allow  us  to 
suppose  that  we  have  any  greater  claims  than  others,  and  ex¬ 
perience  sometimes  reveals  to  us  unexpected  flashes  of  the  higher 
nature  in  those  whom  we  had  despised.  Such  are  some  of  the 
distracting  thoughts  which  press  upon  us  when  we  attempt  to 
assign  any  form  to  our  conceptions  of  a  future  state. 

4.  Again,  ideas  must  be  given  through  something;  and  we  are 
always  prone  to  argue  about  the  soul  from  analogies  of  outward 
things  which  may  serve  to  embody  our  thoughts,  but  are  also 
partlv  delusive.  For  we  can  not  reason  from  the  natural  to  the 
spiritual,  or  from  the  outward  to  the  inward.  The  progress  of 
physiological  science,  without  bringing  us  nearer  to  the  great 
secret,  has  perhaps  tended  to  remove  some  erroneous  notions 
respecting  the  relations  of  body  and  mind,  and  in  this  we  have 
the  advantage  of  the  ancients.  But  no  one  imagines  that  any 
seed  of  immortality  is  to  be  discerned  in  our  mortal  frames. 
The  result  seems  to  be  that  those  who  have  thought  most  deeply 
on  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  have  been  content  to  rest  then- 
belief  on  the  agreement  of  the  more  enlightened  part  of  mankind, 


INTRODUCTION 


173 


and  on  the  inseparable  connection  of  such  a  doctrine  with  the 
existence  of  a  God,  and  our  ideas  of  divine  justice  —  also  in  a 
less  degree  on  the  impossibility  of  thinking  otherwise  of  those 
whom  we  reverence  in  this  world.  And  after  all  has  been  said, 
the  figure,  the  analogy,  the  argument,  are  felt  to  be  only  approx¬ 
imations  in  different  forms  to  the  expression  of  the  common 
sentipaent  of  the  human  heart. 

P^The  Phaedo  of  Plato  may  also  be  regarded  as  a  dialectical 
approximation  to  the  truth  of  immortality.  Beginning  in  mys- 
tery,  Socrates,  in  the  intermediate  part  of  the  Dialogue,  at¬ 
tempts  to  bring  the  doctrine  of  a  future  life  into  connection  with 
his  theory  of  knowledge.  ✓Tn  proportion  as  he  succeeds  in  this, 
the  individual  seems ^to^disappear  in  a  more  general  notion  of 
the  soul;  the  contemplation  of  ideas  “under  the  form  of  eter¬ 
nity  takes  the  place  of  past  and  future  states  of  existence. 
His  language  may  be  compared  to  that  of  some  modern  philoso¬ 
phers,  who  speak  of  eternity,  not  in  the  sense  of  perpetual  dura¬ 
tion  of  time,  but  as  an  ever-present  quality  of  the  soul.  Yet  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  Dialogue,  having  “  arrived  at  the  end  of 
the  intellectual  world,”  he  replaces  the  veil  of  mythology,  and 
describes  the  soul  and  her  attendant  genius  in  the  language  of 
the  mysteries  or  of  a  disciple  of  Zoroaster.  Nor  can  we  fairly 
demand  of  Plato  a  consistency  which  is  wanting  among  ourselves, 
who  acknowledge  that  another  world  is  beyond  the  range  of 
human  thought,  and  yet  are  always  seeking  to  represent  the  man¬ 
sions  of  heaven  or  hell  in  the  colors  of  the  painter,  or  in  the 
descriptions  of  the  poet  or  rhetorician. 

6.  The  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  was  not  new 
to  the  Greeks  in  the  age  of  Socrates,  but,  like  the  unity  of  God, 
had  a  foundation  in  the  popular  belief.  The  old  Homeric  notion 
of  a  gibbering  ghost  flitting  away  to  Hades ;  or  of  a  few  illus¬ 
trious  heroes  enjoying  the  isles  of  the  blest;  or  of  an  existence 
di\ ided  between  the  two;  or  the  Hesiodic,  of  righteous  spirits, 
who  become  guardian  angels,  —  had  given  place  in  the  mys¬ 
teries  and  the  Orphic  poets  to  representations,  partly  fanciful, 
of  a  future  state  of  rewards  and  punishments.  The  reticence  of 
the  Greeks  on  public  occasions  and  in  some  part  of  their  litera¬ 
ture  respecting  this  “  underground  ”  religion,  is  not  to  be  taken 
as  a  measure  of  the  diffusion  of  such  beliefs.  If  Pericles  in  the 
funeral  oration  is  silent  on  the  consolations  of  immortality,  the 
poet  Pindar  and  the  tragedians  on  the  other  hand  constantly 
assume  the  continued  existence  of  the  dead  in  an  upper  or  under 
world.  Darius  and  Laius  are  still  alive;  Antigone  will  be  dear 


174 


PHAEDO 


to  her  brethren  after  death ;  the  way  to  the  palace  of  Cronos 
is  found  by  those  who  “  have  thrice  departed  from  evil.  The 
tragedy  of  the  Greeks  is  not  “rounded  by  this  life,  but  is 
deeply  set  in  decrees  of  fate  and  mysterious  workings  of  powers 
beneath  the  earth.  In  the  caricature  of  Aristophanes  there  is 
also  a  witness  to  the  common  sentiment.  The  Ionian  and  Pyt  - 
agorean  philosophies  arose,  and  some  new  elements  were  added 
to  the  popular  belief.  The  individual  must  find  an  expression 
as  well  as  the  world.  Either  the  soul  was  supposed  to  exist  in 
the  form  of  a  magnet  or  of  a  particle  of  fire,  or  light,  or  air,  or 
water ;  or  of  a  number  or  of  a  harmony  of  number ;  or  to  be  or 
have,  like  the  stars,  a  principle  of  motion.  At  length  Anaxago¬ 
ras,  hardly  distinguishing  between  life  and  mind,  or  between 
mind  human  and  divine,  attained  the  pure  abstraction;  and  this, 
like  the  other  abstractions  of  Greek  philosophy,  sank  deep  in  o 
the  human  intelligence.  The  opposition  of  the  intelligible  and 
the  sensible,  and  of  God  to  the  world,  supplied  an  analogy  which 
assisted  in  the  separation  of  soul  and  body.  If  ideas  were  sep¬ 
arable  from  phenomena,  mind  was  also  separable  from  matter, 
if  the  ideas  were  eternal,  the  mind  that  conceived  them  was  eter¬ 
nal  too.  As  the  unity  of  God  was  more  distinctly  acknowledged 
the  conception  of  the  human  soul  became  more  developed.  e 
succession,  or  alternation  of  life  and  death,  had  occurred  to 
Heraeleitus.  The  Eleatic  Parmenides  had  stumbled  upon  Jme 
modern  thesis,  that  “  thought  and  being  are  the  same.  The 
eastern  belief  in  transmigration  defined  the  sense  of  individual 
ity  •  and  some,  like  Empedocles,  fancied  that  the  blood  whic 
they  had  shed  in  another  state  of  being  was  crying  against  them, 
and  that  for  thirty  thousand  years  they  were  to  be  fugitives 
and  vagabonds  upon  the  earth.”  The  desire  of  recognizing  a 
lost  love  or  friend  in  the  world  below  is  a  natural  feeling  which, 
in  that  age  as  well  as  in  every  other,  has  given  distinctness  to 
the  hope  of  immortality.  Nor  were  ethical  considerations  want¬ 
ing,  partly  derived  from  the  necessity  of  punishing  the  greater 
sort  of  criminals,  whom  no  avenging  power  of  this  world  could 
reach.  The  voice  of  conscience,  too,  was  heard  reminding  t  e 
good  man  that  he  was  not  altogether  innocent.  To  these  indis¬ 
tinct  longings  and  fears  an  expression  was  given  in  the  myster¬ 
ies  and  Orphic  poets:  a  "heap  of  books,  passing  under  the 
names  of  Musaeus  and  Orpheus  in  Plato  s  time  were  filled  with 

notions  of  an  under  world.  -  ,  i 

7.  Yet  probably  the  belief  in  the  individuality  of  the  soul  afte 

death  had  but  a  feeble  hold  on  the  Greek  mind.  Like  the  per- 


INTRODUCTION 


175 


sonality  of  God,  the  personality  of  man  in  a  future  state  was  not 
inseparably  bound  up  with  the  reality  of  his  existence.  For  the 
distinction  between  the  personal  and  impersonal,  and  also  be¬ 
tween  the  divine  and  human,  was  far  less  marked  to  the  Greek 
than  to  ourselves.  And  as  Plato  readily  passes  from  the  notion 
of  the  good  to  that  of  God,  he  also  passes  almost  imperceptibly 
to  himself  and  his  reader  from  the  future  life  of  the  individual 
soul  to  the  eternal  being  of  the  absolute  soul.  There  has  been 
a  clearer  statement  and  a  clearer  denial  of  the  belief  in  modern 
times  than  is  found  in  early  Greek  philosophy,  and  hence  the 
comparative  silence  on  the  whole  subject  which  is  often  remarked 
in  ancient  writers,  and  particularly  in  Aristotle.  For  Plato  and 
Aristotle  are  not  further  removed  in  their  teaching  about  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  than  they  are  in  their  theory  of  knowl¬ 
edge. 

8.  That  in  an  age  when  logic  was  beginning  to  mould  human 
thought,  Plato  should  have  cast  his  belief  in  immortality  into 
a  jogical_form,  is  not  surprising.  And  when  we  consider  how 
much  the  doctrine  of  ideas  was  also  one  of  words,  we  can  not 
wonder  that  he  should  have  fallen  into  verbal  fallacies:  early 
logic  is  always  mistaking  the  truth  of  the  form  for  the  truth  of 
the  matter.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  alternation  of  opposites  is 
not  the  same  as  the  generation  of  them  out  of  each  other;  and 
that  the  generation  of  them  out  of  each  other,  which  is  the  first 
argument  in  the  Phaedo,  is  at  variance  with  their  mutual  exclu¬ 
sion  of  each  other,  whether  in  themselves  or  in  us,  which  is  the 
last.  For  even  if  we  admit  the  distinction  which  he  draws 
between  the  opposites  and  the  things  which  have  the  oppo¬ 
sites,  still  individuals  fall  under  the  latter  class ;  and  we  have 
to  pass  out  of  the  region  of  human  hopes  and  fears  to  a  con¬ 
ception  of  an  abstract  soul  which  is  the  impersonation  of  the 
ideas.  Such  a  conception,  which  in  Plato  himself  is  but  half 
expressed,  is  unmeaning  to  Us,  and  relative  only  to  a  particular 
stage  in  the  history  of  thought.  The  doctrine  of  reminiscence 
is  also  a  fragment  of  a  former  world,  which  has  no  place  in  the 
philosophy  of  modern  times.  But  Plato  had  the  wonders  of 
psychology  just  opening  to  him,  and  he  had  not  the  explanation 
of  them  which  is  supplied  by  the  analysis  of  language  and  the 
history  of  the  human  mind.  The  question,  “  Whence  come  our 
abstract  ideas  ?  he  could  only  answer  by  an  imaginary  hypothe¬ 
sis.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  see  that  his  crowning  argument  is  purely 
verbal,  and  is  but  the  expression  of  an  instinctive  confidence  put 
into  a  logical  form:. —  “The  soul  is  immortal  because  it  con- 


176 


PHAEDO 


> 


tains  a  principle  of  imperishablenegsv^  Nor  does  he  himself 
seem  at  all  to  be  aware  that  nothing  is  added  to  human  knowl¬ 
edge  by  his  “  safe  and  simple  answer/’  that  beauty  is  the  cause 
of &the  beautiful;  and  that  he  is  merely  reasserting  the  Eleatic 
being  “  divided  by  the  Pythagorean  numbers/’  against  the  Hera- 
cleitean  doctrine  of  perpetual  generation.  The  answer  to  the 
“  very  serious  question  ”  of  generation  and  destruction  is  really 
the  denial  of  them.  For  this  he  would  substitute,  as  in  the  Re¬ 
public,  a  system  of  ideas,  tested  not  by  experience,  but  by  their 
consequences,  and  not  explained  by.  actual  causes,  but  by  a 
higher,  that  is,  more  general  notion:  consistency  with  them¬ 
selves  is  all  that  is  required  of  them. 

9.  To  deal  fairly  with  such  arguments  they  should  not  only 
not  be  separated  from  the  age  to  which  they  belong,  but  they 
should  be  translated  as  far  as  possible  into  their  modern  equiv¬ 
alents..  f  If  the  ideas  of  men  are  eternalyjtheir  souls  are  eternal, 
and  if  not'  the  ideas,  then  not  the  souls/’  Such  an  argument 
stands  nearly  in  the  same  relation  to  Plato  and  his  age,  as  the 
argument  from  the  existence  of  God  to  immortality  among  our¬ 
selves.  “If  God  exists,  then  the  soul  exists  after  death;  and 
if  there  is  no  God,  there  is  no  existence  of  the  soul  after  death.” 
For  the  ideas  are  to  his  mind  the  reality,  the  truth,  the  principle 
of  permanence,  as  well  as  of  mind  and  order  in  the  world.  When 
Simmias  and  Cebes  say  that  they  are  more  strongly  persuaded 
of  the  existence  of  ideas  than  they  are  of  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  they  represent  fairly  enough  the  order  of  thought  in 
Greek  philosophy.  And  we  might  say  in  the  same  way  that 
we  are  more  certain  of  the  existence  of  God  than  we  are  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  and  are  led  by  the  belief  in  the  one  to 
a  belief  in  the  other.  The  parallel,  as  Socrates  would  say,  is 
not  perfect,  but  agrees  in  as  far  as  the  mind  in  either  case  is 
regarded,  as  dependent  on  something  above  and  beyond  herself. 
Nor  need  we  shrink  from  pressing  the  analogy  one  step  further: 

“  We  are  more  certain  of  our  ideas  of  truth  and  right  than  we 
are  of  the  existence  of  God,  and  are  led  on  in  the  order  of  thought 
from  one  to  the  other.” 

10.  The  main  argument  of  the  Phaedo  is  derived  from  the 
existence  of  eternal  ideas  of  which  the  soul  is  a  partaker ;  th^s 
other  argument  of  the  alternation  of  opposites  is  replaced  by  tliis.^ 
And  there  have  not  been  wanting  philosophers  of  the  idealist 
school  who  have  imagined  that  the  doctrine  of  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  is  a  theory  of  knowledge  only,  and  that  in  all  that 
precedes  Plato  is  preparing  for  this.  Such  a  view  is  far  from 


INTRODUCTION 


177 


lying  on  the  surface  of  the  Phaedo,  and  seems  to  be  inconsistent 
with  the  Gorgias  and  the  Republic.  Those  who  maintain  it  are 
immediately  compelled  to  renounce  the  shadow  which  they  have 
grasped,  as  a  play  of  words  only.  But  the  truth  is,  that  Plato 
in  his  argument  for  the  immortality  of  the  soul  has  collected 
many  elements  of  proof  or  persuasion,  ethical  and  mythological 
as  well  as  dialectical,  which  are  not  easily  to  be  reconciled  with 
one  another^  and  he  is  as  much  in  earnest  about  his  doctrine 
of  retribution,  which  is  repeated  in  all  his  more  ethical  writings, 
as  about  his  theory  of  knowdedge.  And  while  we  may  fairly 
translate  the  dialectical  into  the  language  of  Hegel,  and  the 
religious  and  mythological  into  the  language  of  Dante  or  Bun- 
yan,  the  ethical  speaks  to  us  still  in  the  same  voice,  reaching 
across  the  ages. 

11.  Two  arguments  of  this  sort  occur  in  the  Phaedo.  The 
first  may  be  described  as  the  aspiration  of  the  soul  after  another 
sort  of  being:-  Like  the  Oriental  or  Christian  ascetic.  theT philos¬ 
opher  is  seeking  to  withdraw  from  impurities  of  sense,  to  leave 
the  world  and  the  things  of  the  world,  and  to  find  his  higher 
self.  Plato  recognizes  in  these  aspirations  the  foretaste  of  im¬ 
mortality;  as  Butler  and  Addison  in  modern  times  have  argued, 
the  one  from  the  moral  tendencies  of  mankind,  the  other  from 
the  progress  of  the  soul  towards  perfection.  In  using  this  argu¬ 
ment  Plato  has  certainly  confused  the  soul  which  has  left  the 
body,  with  the  soul  of  the  good  and  wise.  Such  a  confusion  was 
natural,  and  arose  partly  out  of  the  antithesis  of  soul  and  body. 
The  soul  in  her  own  essence,  and  the  soul  “  clothed  upon  ”  with 
virtues  and  graces,  were  easily  interchanged  with  one  another, 
because  on  a  subject  which  passes  expression  the  distinctions  of 
language  can  hardly  be  maintained. 

12. - [The  other  ethical  proof  of  the  immortality  of  the  soul  is 
deriveoTrom  the  necessity  of  retribution.  The  wicked  would 
be  too  well  off  if  their  evil  deeds  came  to  an  end.  It  is  not  to 
be  supposed  that  an  Ardiaeus,  an  Archelaus,  an  Ismenias  could 
ever  have  suffered  the  penalty  of  their  crimes  in  this  world. 
The  manner  in  which  this  retribution  is  accomplished  Plato  rep¬ 
resents  under  the  figure  of  mythology.  Doubtless  he  felt  that 
it  was  easier  to  improve  than  to  invent,  and  that  in  religion 
especially  the  traditional  form  was  required  in  order  to  give 
verisimilitude  to  the  myth.  The  myth  too  is  far  more  probable 
to  that  age  than  to  ours,  and  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  “  one 
guess  among  many  ”  about  the  nature  of  the  earth,  which  he 
cleverly  supports  by  the  indications  of  geology.  Not  that  he 


178 


PHAEDO 


insists  on  the  absolute  truth  of  his  own  particular  notions:  “  no 
man  of  sense  will  be  confident  of  that ;  but  he  will  be  confident 
that  something  of  the  kind  is  true.”  As  in  other  passages,  he 
wins  belief  for  his  fictions  by  the  moderation  of  his  statements; 
he  does  not,  like  Dante  or  Swedenborg,  allow  himself  to  be 
deceived  by  his  own  creations. 

The  Dialogue  must  be  read  in  the  light  of  the  situation.  And 
first  of  all  we  are  struck  by  the  calmness  of  the  scene.  Like  the 
spectators  at  the  time,  we  can  not  pity  Socrates ;  his  mien  and 
his  language  are  so  noble  and  fearless.  He  is  the  same  as  he 
ever  was,  but  milder  and  gentler,  and  he  has  in  no  degree  lost 
his  interest  in  dialectics;  the  argument  is  the  greatest  gam  to 
him,  and  he  will  not  forego  the  delight  of  it  in  compliance  with 
the  jailer’s  intimation  that  he  should  not  heat  himself  with  talk¬ 
ing.  Some  other  traits  of  his  character  may  be  noted;  for  ex¬ 
ample,  the  courteous  manner  in  which  he  inclines  his  head  to 
the  last  objector,  or  the  ironical  touch,  “hie  already,  as  the 
tragic  poet  would  say,  the  voIce^dfTate.  calls ;  or  the  deprecia¬ 
tion  of  the  arguments  with  which  ‘  he  comforted  himself  and 
them ;  ”  or  the  allusion  to  the  possibility  of  finding  another 
teacher  among  barbarous  races;  or  the  mysterious  reference  to 
another  science  (mathematics?)  of  generation  and  destruction 
for  which  he  is  vainly  feeling.  There  is  no  change  in  him ;  only 
now  he  is  invested  with  a  sort  of  sacred  character,  as  the  prophet 
or  priest  of  Apollo  the  God  of  thT?iktivaT,lH  whose  honor  he 
first  of  all  composes  a  hymn,  and  then  like  the  swan  pours  forth 
his  dying  lay.  Perhaps  the  extreme  elevation  of  Socrates  above 
his  own  situation,  and  the  ordinary  interests  of  life  (compare 
his  jeu  d’esprit  about  his  burial)  create  in  the  mind  of  the  reader 
an  impression  stronger  than  could  be  derived  from  arguments 
that  such  an  one,  in  his  own  language,  has  in  him  a  principle 

which  does  not  admit  of  death.  . 

The  other  persons  of  the  Dialogue  may  be  considered  under 

two  heads:  ''(l)  private  friends;  (2)  the  respondents  in  the 

First  there  is  Crito,  who  has  been  already  introduced  to  us ; 
he  is  the  equal  in  years  of  Socrates,  and  stands  in  quite  a  dif¬ 
ferent  relation  to  him  from  his  younger  disciples.  He  is  a  man 
of  the  world  who  is  rich  and  prosperous,  the  best  friend  ol  Soc¬ 
rates,  who  wants  to  know  his  HiTcommands,  in  whose  presence 
he  talks  to  his  family,  and  who  performs  the  last  duty  of  closing 
his  eves.  It  is  observable'  too  that  Crito  shows  no  aptitude  lor 
philosophical  discussions..  Nor  among  the  friends  of  Socrates 


INTRODUCTION 


179 


must  the  jailer  be  forgotten,  who  seems  to  have  been  introduced 
by  Plato  in  order  to  show  the  impression  made  by  the  extraor¬ 
dinary  man  on  the  common.  The  gentle  nature  of  the  man  is 
indicated  by  his  weeping  at  the  announcement  of  his  errand  and 
then  turning  away,  and  also  by  the  words  of  Socrates  to  his 
disciples:  “How  charming  the  man  is!  since  I  have  been  in 
prison  he  was  always  coming  to  me,  and  has  been  as  good  as 
could  be  to  me.”  We  are  reminded  too  that  he  has  retained  this 
gentle  nature  amid  scenes  of  death  and  violence  by  the  contrasts 
which  he  draws  between  the  behavior  of  Socrates  and  of  others 
when  about  to  die. 

Another  person  who  takes  no  part-  in  the  philosophical  dis¬ 
cussion  is  the  excitable  Apollodorus,  the  same  who,  in  the  Sym¬ 
posium,  of  which  he  is  tlm  narrator,  is  called  “  the  madman,” 
and  who  testifies  his  grief  by  the  most  violent  emotions.  Phaedo 
is  also  present,  the  “  beloved  disciple  ”  as  he  may  be  termed,  who 
is  described,  if  not  “  leaning  orTTns  bosom,”  as  seated  next  to 
Socrates,  who  is  playing  with  his  hair.  At  a  particular  point 
the  argument  is  described  as  falling  before  the  attack  of  Sim- 
mias.  A  sort  of  despair  is  introduced  in  the  minds  of  the  com¬ 
pany.  The  effect  of  this  is  heightened  by  the  description  of 
JPhaedo,  who  has  been  the  eve-witness  of  the  scene,  and  by  the 
sympathy  of"his  Phliasian  auditors  who  are  beginning  to  think 
“  that  they  too  can  never  trust  an  argument  again.”  Like  Apol- 
lodorus,  Phaedo  himself  takes  no  part  in  the  argument.  But 
the  calmness  of  his  behavior,  “  veiling  his  face  ”  when  he  can 
no  longer  contain  his  tears,  contrasts  with  the  passionate  cries 
of  the  other. 

The  two  principal  interlocutors  are  Simmias  and  Cebes,  the 
disciples  of  Philolaus  the  Pythagorean  philosopher  j)UTLebes. 
Simmias  is  described  in  the  Phaedrus  as  fonder  of  an  argument 
than  any  man  livingj  and  Cebes,  although  finally  persuaded  by 
Socrates,  is  said  to  be  the  most  incredulous  of  human  beings. 

It  is  Cebes  who  at  the  commencement  of  the  Dialogue  raises  the  ' 
question  why  “  suicide  is  unlawful,”  and  who  first  supplies  the 
doctrine  of  recollection  as  a  confirmation  of  the  argument  of  the 
preexistence  of  the  souL  It  is  Cebes  who  urges  that  the_pre- 
exisfence  does  not  necessarily  involve  the  future  existence  of  the 
soul,  and  who  brings~forward  the  argument  of  the  weaver  and  Ins 
coat.  To  Simmias,  on  the  other  hand,  is  attributed  the  notion 
that  the  soul  is  a  harmony,  which  is  naturally  put  into  the  mouth 

^-Pythagorean  discipIeT  It  is  Simmias,  too,  who  first  remarks 
on  the  uncertainty  of  human  knowledge,  and  only  at  last  con- 


180 


PHAEDO 


cedes  to  the  argument  such  a  qualified  approval  as  is  consistent 

with  the  feebleness  of  the  human  faculties. 

There  is  no  proof  that  the  conversation  was  ever  actually  held, 

,  and  the  place  of  the  Dialogue  in  the  series  is  doubtful  i  he 
doctrine  of  ideas  is  certainly  carried  beyond  the  Socratic  point 
of  view;  in  no  other  of  the  writings  of  Plato  is  the  theory  o 
them  so  completely  developed.  Whether  the  belief  •“immor¬ 
tality  can  be  attributed  to  Socrates  or  not  is  uncertain ,  the 
silence  of  the  Memorabilia,  and  of  the  earlier  Dialogues  of 
Plato,  is  an  argument  to  the  contrary.  Yet  in  the  Cyropaedia 
Xenophon  has  put  language  into  the  mouth  of  the  dying  yru 
which  recalls  the  Phaedo,  and  may  perhaps  have  been  derived 

from  the  teaching  of  Socrates.  .  f  , 

The  Phaedo,  as  has  been  already  intimated,  is  not  one  ot  the 

Socratic  Dialogues  of  Plato;  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  can  it  be 
assigned  to  that  later  period  of  the  Platonic  writings  at  which 
the  ideas  appear  to  be  forgotten.  Without  Pretending  to  deter- 
mine  the  real  time  of  composition,  the  Meno,  Euthyphro,  Apol 
OD-y,  Phaedo,  Symposium  may  be  conveniently  read  by  us  m 
this  order  as  illustrative  of  the  life  of  Socrates.  Another  chain 
may  be  formed  of  the  Meno,  Phaedo,  Phaedrus  in  which  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  is  connected  with  the  doctrine  of  ideas. 
In  the  Meno  the  theory  of  ideas  is  based  on  the  ancient  belie 
in  transmigration,  which  reappears  again  m  the  Phaedrus  as 
well  as  in  the  Republic  and  Timaeus,  and  in  all  of  them  is  con¬ 
nected  with  a  doctrine  of  retribution.  In  the  Phaedrus  the  1m 
mortality  of  the  soul  is  supposed  to  rest  on  the  conception  o 
the  soul  as  a  principle  of  motion,  whereas  in  the  Republic  the 
argument  turns  on  the  natural  continuance  of  the  soul,  which 
if  not  destroyed  by  her  own  proper  evil,  can  hardly  be  destroye 
by  any  other.  The  soul  of  man  in  the  Timaeus  is  derived  from 
the  Supreme  Creator,  and  either  returns  after  death  to  her  kin¬ 
dred  star,  or  descends  into  the  lower  life  of  an  animal.  The 
Apology  expresses  the  same  view  as  the  Phaedo,  but  with  less 
confidence;  the  probability  of  death  being  a  long  sleep  is  no 
excluded  The  Theaetetus  also  describes,  in  a  digression,  the 
desire  of  the  soul  to  fly  away  and  be  with  God—  and  to  fly 
to  him  is  to  be  like  him.”  Lastly,  the  Symposium  may  be  ob¬ 
served  to  resemble  as  well  as  to  differ  from  the  Phaedo.  W 
the  first  notion  of  immortality  is  only  in  the  way  of  natural  pro¬ 
creation  or  of  posthumous  fame  and  glory,  the  hig  er  vision  o 
beauty,  like  the  good  in  the  Republic,  is  the  vision  of  the  eternal 
idea.  7  So  deeply  rooted  in  Plato’s  mind  is  the  belief  in  immor-_ 


INTRODUCTION  181 

tality ;  so  various  are  the  forms  of  expression  which  he  em¬ 
ploys. 

Some  elements  of  the  drama  may  be  noted  in  all  the  Dialogues 
of  Plato.  The  Phaedo  is  the  tragedy  of  which  Socrates  is  the 
protagonist  and  Simmias  and  Cebes  the  secondary  performers. 
No  Dialogue  has  a  greater  unity  of  subject  and  feeling.  Plato 
has  certainly  fulfilled  the  condition  of  Greek,  or  rather  of  all 
art,  which  requires  that  scenes  of  death  and  suffering  should 
be  clothed  in  beauty.  The  gathering  of  the  friends  at  the  com¬ 
mencement  of  the  Dialogue,  the  dejection  of  the  audience  at  the 
temporary  overthrow  of  the  argument,  the  picture  of  Socrates 
playing  with  the  hair  of  Phaedo,  the  final  scene  in  which  Socrates 
alone  retains  his  composure  —  are  masterpieces  of  art.  The 
chorus  at  the  end  might  have  interpreted  the  feeling  of  the  play: 
“  There  can  no  evil  happen  to  a  good  man  in  life  or  death.” 


_ 


PHAEDO 


PHAEDO 


PERSONS  OF  THE  DIALOGUE 


Phaedo,  who  is  the  narrator  of 
the  Dialogue  to 
Echecrates  of  Phlius. 
Socrates. 

Attendant  of  the  Prison. 


Apollodorus. 

SlMMIAS. 

Cebes. 

Crito. 


Scene  : —  The  Prison  of  Socrates. 
Place  of  the  Narration  : —  Phlius. 


Echecrates.  Were  you  yourself,  Phaedo,  in  the 
prison  with  Socrates  on  the  day  when  he  drank  the 
poison? 

Phaedo.  Yes,  Echecrates,  I  was. 

Ech.  I  wish  that  you  would  tell  me  about  his  death. 
What  did  he  say  in  his  last  hours?  W^e  were  informed 
that  he  died  by  taking  poison,  but  no  one  knew  any¬ 
thing  more ;  for  no  Phliasian  ever  goes  to  Athens  now, 
and  a  long  time  has  elapsed  since  any  Athenian  found 
his  way  to  Phlius,  and  therefore  we  had  no  clear  ac¬ 
count. 

Phaed.  Did  you  not  hear  of  the  proceedings  at  the 
trial? 

Ech.  Yes;  some  one  told  us  about  the  trial,  and  we 
could  not  understand  why,  having  been  condemned, 
he  was  put  to  death,  as  appeared,  not  at  the  time,  but 
long  afterwards.  What  was  the  reason  of  this? 

Phaed.  An  accident,  Echecrates.  The  reason  was 
that  the  stern  of  the  ship  which  the  Athenians  send  to 
Delos  happened  to  have  been  crowned  on  the  day 
before  he  was  tried. 

Ech.  What  is  this  ship? 

185 


186 


PHAEDO 


Phaed.  This  is  the  ship  in  which,  as  the  Athenians 
say,  Theseus  went  to  Crete  when  he  took  with  him 
the  fourteen  youths,  and  was  the  savior  of  them  and 
of  himself.  And  they  were  said  to  have  vowed  to 
Apollo  at  the  time,  that  if  they  were  saved  they  would 
make  an  annual  pilgrimage  to  Delos.  Now  this 
custom  still  continues,  and  the  whole  period  of  the 
voyage  to  and  from  Delos,  beginning  when  the  priest 
of  Apollo  crowns  the  stern  of  the  ship,  is  a  holy  season, 
during  which  the  city  is  not  allowed  to  be  polluted  by 
public  executions;  and  often,  when  the  vessel  is  de¬ 
tained  by  adverse  winds,  there  may  be  a  very  consider¬ 
able  delay.  As  I  was  saying,  the  ship  was  crowned  on 
the  day  before  the  trial,  and  this  was  the  reason  why 
Socrates  lay  in  prison  and  was  not  put  to  death  until 

long  after  he  was  condemned. 

Ech.  What  was  the  manner  of  his  death,  Phaedo? 
What  was  said  or  done?  And  which  of  his  friends 
had  he  with  him?  Or  were  they  not  allowed  by  the 
authorities  to  be  present?  And  did  he  die  alone? 

Phaed .  No;  there  were  several  of  his  friends  with 

him. 

Ech .  If  you  have  nothing  to  do,  I  wish  that  you 
would  tell  me  what  passed,  as  exactly  as  you  can. 

Phaed.  I  have  nothing  to  do,  and  will  try  to  gratify 
your  wish.  Tor  to  me  too  there  is  no  greater  pleasure 
than  to  have  Socrates  brought  to  my  recollection; 
whether  I  speak  myself  or  hear  another  speak  of  him. 

Ech.  You  will  have  listeners  who  are  of  the  same 
mind  with  you,  and  I  hope  that  you  will  be  as  exact  as 

you  can. 

Phaed.  I  remember  the  strange  feeling  which  came 
over  me  at  being  with  him.  For  I  could  hardly  believe 
that  I  was  present  at  the  death  of  a  friend,  and  there¬ 
fore  I  did  not  pity  him,  Echecrates ;  his  mien  and  his 
language  were  so  noble  and  fearless  in  the  houi  of 


PHAEDO 


187 


death  that  to  me  he  appeared  blessed.  I  thought  that 
in  going  to  the  other  world  he  could  not  be  without  a 
divine  call,  and  that  he  would  be  happy,  if  any  man 
ever  was,  when  he  arrived  there ;  and  therefore  I  did 
not  pity  him  as  might  seem  natural  at  such  a  time. 
But  neither  could  I  feel  the  pleasure  which  I  usually 
felt  in  philosophical  discourse  ( for  philosophy  was  the 
theme  of  which  we  spoke).  I  was  pleased  and  I  was 
also  pained,  because  I  knew  that  he  was  soon  to  die, 
and  this  strange  mixture  of  feeling  was  shared  by  us 
all;  we  were  langhing  and  weeping  by  turns,  espe¬ 
cially  the  excitable  Apollodorus  —  you  know  the  sort 
of  man? 

Ech.  Yes. 

Phaed.  He  was  quite  overcome ;  and  I  myself,  and 
all  of  us  were  greatly  moved. 

Ech.  Who  were  present? 

Phaed.  Of  native  Athenians  there  were,  besides 
Apollodorus,  Critobulus  and  his  father  Crito,  Her- 
mogenes,  Epigenes,  Aeschines,  and  Antisthenes;  like¬ 
wise  Ctesippus  of  the  deme  of  Paeania,  Menexenus, 
and  some  others;  but  Plato,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  was 
ill. 

Ech.  Were  there  any  strangers? 

Phaed.  Yes,  there  were;  Simmias  the  Theban,  and 
Cebes,  and  Phaedondes;  Euclid  and  Terpsion,  who 
came  from  Megara. 

Ech.  And  was  Aristippus  there,  and  Cleombrotus? 

Phaed.  No,  they  were  said  to  be  in  Aegina. 

Ech.  Any  one  else? 

Phaed.  I  think  that  these  were  about  all. 

Ech.  And  what  was  the  discourse  of  which  you 
spoke? 

Phaed.  I  will  begin  at  the  beginning,  and  endeavor 
to  repeat  the  entire  conversation.  You  must  under¬ 
stand  that  we  had  been  previously  in  the  habit  of 


188 


PHAEDO 


assembling  early  in  the  morning  at  the  court  in  which 
Se  trial  was  held,  and  which  is  not  far  from  the  prison 
There  we  remained  talking  with  one  another  until  the 
opening  of  the  prison  doors  (for  they  were  not  open 
very  early) ,  and  then  went  in  and  generally  passed 
the  day  with  Socrates.  On  the  last  morning  the  meet¬ 
ing  Was  earlier  than  usual;  this  was  owing  to  our 
having  heard  on  the  previous  evening  that  the  sacred 
ship  had  arrived  from  Delos,  and  therefore  we  agree 
to  meet  very  early  at  the  accustomed  place.  On  oui 
going  to  the  prison,  the  jailer  who  answered  the  door 
instead  of  admitting  us,  came  out  and  hade  us  v  ait 
and  he  would  call  us.  “  For  the  eleven,  he  said,  are 
now  with  Socrates;  they  are  taking  off  his  chains,^ 

giving  orders  that  he  is  to  die  o  ay .  enter- 

returned  and  said  that  we  might  come  in.  On  enter 
ing  we  found  Socrates  just  released  from  chains,  and 
Xanthippe,  whom  you  know,  sitting  by  him,  and  hold 
Sis  child  in  her  arms.  When  she  saw  us  she  uttered 
a  cry  and  said,  as  women  will:  “  O  Socrates,  this  is  the 
last'  time  that  either  you  will  converse  with  youi 
Suds  or  they  with  you.”  Socrates  turned  to  Cnto 
and  said:  “  Crito,  let  some  one  take  her  home. 
Some  of  Crito’s  people  accordingly  led  her  away,  cry- 
ing  out  and  heating  herself.  And  when  she  was  gone 
Socrates  sitting  up  on  the  couch,  began  to  bend  and 
*„b  h?W  SayfngP.s  he  tubbed:  How  smgu « ts :  the 
riling  called  pleasure,  and  how  curiously 
paint  which  might  be  thought  to  bs :  the  opposite  old, 
for  they  never  come  to  a  man  together,  an  y 
pursues  either  of  them  is  generally  compelled  to  take 
the  other.  They  are  two,  and  yet  they  grow  togethe 
nnt  of  one  head  or  stem;  and  I  can  not  help  think  g 
that  if  Aesop  had  noticed  them,  he  would  have  made  a 
fable  about  God  trying  to  reconcile  their  strife 
when  he  could  not,  he  fastened  their  heads  togethe  , 


PHAEDO 


189 


and  this  is  the  reason  why  when  one  comes  the  other 
follows,  as  I  find  in  my  own  case  pleasure  comes  fol¬ 
lowing  after  the  pain  in  my  leg  which  was  caused  by 
the  chain. 

Upon  this  Cebes  said:  I  am  very  glad  indeed, 
Socrates,  that  you  mentioned  the  name  of  Aesop. 
For  that  reminds  me  of  a  question  which  has  been 
asked  by  others,  and  was  asked  of  me  only  the  day 
before  yesterday  by  E venus  the  poet,  and  as  he  will 
be  sure  to  ask  again,  you  may  as  well  tell  me  what  I 
should  say  to  him,  if  you  would  like  him  to  have  an 
answer.  He  wanted  to  know  why  you  who  never  be¬ 
fore  wrote  a  line  of  poetry,  now  that  you  are  in  prison 
are  putting  Aesop  into  verse,  and  also  composing  that 
hymn  in  honor  of  Apollo. 

Tell  him,  Cebes,  he  replied,  that  I  had  no  idea  of 
rivalling  him  or  his  poems;  which  is  the  truth,  for  I 
knew  that  I  could  not  do  that.  But  I  wanted  to  see 
whether  I  could  purge  away  a  scruple  which  I  felt 
about  certain  dreams.  In  the  course  of  my  life  I  have 
often  had  intimations  in  dreams  “  that  I  should  make 
music.”  The  same  dream  came  to  me  sometimes  in 
one  form,  and  sometimes  in  another,  but  always  saying 
the  same  or  nearly  the  same  words:  Make  and  culti¬ 
vate  music,  said  the  dream.  And  hitherto  I  had  im¬ 
agined  that  this  was  only  intended  to  exhort  and  en¬ 
courage  me  in  the  study  of  philosophy,  which  has 
always  been  the  pursuit  of  my  life,  and  is  the  noblest 
and  best  of  music.  The  dream  was  bidding  me  do 
what  I  was  already  doing,  in  the  same  way  that  the 
competitor  in  a  race  is  bidden  by  the  spectators  to  run 
when  he  is  already  running.  But  I  was  not  certain  of 
this,  as  the  dream  might  have  meant  music  in  the 
popular  sense  of  the  word,  and  being  under  sentence 
of  death,  and  the  festival  giving  me  a  respite,  I 
thought  that  I  should  be  safer  if  I  satisfied  the  scruple, 


190 


PHAEDO 


and,  in  obedience  to  the  dream,  composed  a  few  verses 
before  I  departed.  And  first  X  made  a  hvmn  in 
honor  of  the  god  of  the  festival,  and  then  considering 
that  a  poet,  if  he  is  really  to  be  a  poet  or  maker,  should 
not  only  put  words  together  but  make  stories,  and  as 
I  have  no  invention,  I  took  some  fables  of  Aesop, 
which  I  had  ready  at  hand  and  knew,  and  turned  them 
into  verse.  Tell  Evenus  this,  and  bid  him  be  of  good 
cheer ;  say  that  I  would  have  him  come  after  me  if  he 
be  a  wise  man,  and  not  tarry;  and  that  to-day  I  am 
likely  to  be  going,  for  the  Athenians  say  that  I  must. 

Simmias  said:  What  a  message  for  such  a  man! 
having  been  a  frequent  companion  of  his  I  should  say 
that,  as  far  as  I  know  him,  he  will  never  take  }  our 

advice  unless  he  is  obliged. 

Why,  said  Socrates.  Is  not  Evenus  a  philosopher? 

I  think  that  he  is,  said  Simmias. 

Then  he,  or  any  man  who  has  the  spirit  of 
philosophy,  will  be  willing  to  die,  though  he  will  not 
take  his  own  life,  for  that  is  held  not  to  be  right. 

Here  he  changed  his  position,  and  put  his  legs  oft 
the  couch  on  to  the  ground,  and  during  the  rest  of  the 

conversation  he  remained  sitting. 

Why  do  you  say,  inquired  Cebes,  that  a  man  ought 
not  to  take  his  own  life,  but  that  the  philosopher  will 

be  ready  to  follow  the  dying? 

Socrates  replied:  And  have  you,  Cebes  and  Sim¬ 
mias,  who  are  acquainted  with  Philolaus,  never  heard 

him  speak  of  this? 

I  never  understood  him,  Socrates. 

My  words,  too,  are  only  an  echo ;  but  I  am  \  ery 
willing  to  say  what  I  have  heard:  and  indeed,  as  I  am 
going  to  another  place,  I  ought  to  be  thinking  and  i 
talking  of  the  nature  of  the  pilgrimage  which  I  am 
about  to  make.  Wliat  can  I  do  better  in  the  intei\al 
between  this  and  the  setting  of  the  sun? 


PHAEDO 


191 


Then  tell  me,  Socrates,  why  is  suicide  held  not  to 
be  right?  as  I  have  certainly  heard  Philolaus  affirm 
when  he  was  staying  with  us  at  Thebes ;  and  there  are 
others  who  say  the  same,  although  none  of  them  has 
ever  made  me  understand  him. 

But  do  your  best,  replied  Socrates,  and  the  day  may 
come  when  you  will  understand.  I  suppose  that  you 
wonder  why,  as  most  things  which  are  evil  may  be 
accidentally  good,  this  is  to  be  the  only  exception  (for 
may  not  death,  too,  be  better  than  life  in  some  cases?) , 
and  why,  when  a  man  is  better  dead,  he  is  not  per¬ 
mitted  to  be  his  own  benefactor,  but  must  wait  for  the 
hand  of  another. 

By  Jupiter!  yes,  indeed,  said  Cebes  laughing,  and 
speaking  in  his  native  Doric. 

I  admit  the  appearance  of  inconsistency,  replied 
Socrates;  but  there  may  not  be  any  real  inconsistency 
after  all  in  this.  There  is  a  doctrine  uttered  in  secret 
that  man  is  a  prisoner  who  has  no  right  to  open  the 
door  of  his  prison  and  run  away;  this  is  a  great 
mystery  which  I  do  not  quite  understand.  Yet  I  too 
believe  that  the  gods  are  our  guardians,  and  that  we 
are  a  possession  of  theirs.  Do  you  not  agree? 

Yes,  I  agree  to  that,  said  Cebes. 

And  if  one  of  your  own  possessions,  an  ox  or  an  ass, 
for  example,  took  the  liberty  of  putting  himself  out 
of  the  way  when  you  had  given  no  intimation  of  your 
wish  that  he  should  die,  would  you  not  be  angry  with 
him,  and  would  you  not  punish  him  if  you  could?  ' 

Certainly,  replied  Cebes. 

Then  there  may  be  reason  in  saying  that  a  man 
should  wait,  and  not  take  his  own  life  until  God  sum¬ 
mons  him,  as  he  is  now  summoning  me. 

Yes,  Socrates,  said  Cebes,  there  is  surely  reason  in 
that.  And  yet  how  can  you  reconcile  this  seemingly 
true  belief  that  God  is  our  guardian  and  we  his  posses- 


192 


PHAEDO 


sions,  with  that  willingness  to  die  which  we  were  at¬ 
tributing  to  the  philosopher?  That  the  wisest  of  men 
should  be  willing  to  leave  this  service  in  which  they 
are  ruled  by  the  gods  who  are  the  best  of  rulers,  is  not 
reasonable,  for  surely  no  wise  man  thinks  that  when 
set  at  liberty  he  can  take  better  care  of  himself  than 
the  gods  take  of  him.  A  fool  may  perhaps  think  this 
—  he  may  argue  that  he  had  better  run  away  from  his 
master,  not  considering  that  his  duty  is  to  remain  to 
the  end,  and  not  to  run  away  from  the  good,  and  that 
there  is  no  sense  in  his  running  away.  But  the  wise 
man  will  want  to  be  ever  with  him  who  is  better  than 
himself.  Now  this,  Socrates,  is  the  reverse  of  what 
was  just  now  said;  for  upon  this  view  the  wise  man 
should  sorrow  and  the  fool  rejoice  at  passing  out  of 

The  earnestness  of  Cebes  seemed  to  please  Socrates. 
Here,  said  he,  turning  to  us,  is  a  man  who  is  always 
inquiring,  and  is  not  to  be  convinced  all  in  a  moment, 

nor  by  every  argument.  _  .  ,  .  , 

And  in  this  case,  added  Simmias,  his  objection  does 
appear  to  me  to  have  some  force.  For  what  can  be 
the  meaning  of  a  truly  wise  man  wanting  to  fly  away 
and  lightly  leave  a  master  who  is  better  than  himself. 
And  I  rather  imagine  that  Cebes  is  referring  to  you ;  : 

he  thinks  that  you  are  too  ready  to  leave  us,  and  too 
ready  to  leave  the  gods  who,  as  you  acknowledge,  are 

our  good  rulers. 

Yer  replied  Socrates ;  there  is  reason  in  that.  And 
this  indictment  you  think  that  I  ought  to  answer  as  1 
I  were  in  court  ? 

That  is  what  we  should  like,  said  Simmias. 

Then  I  must  try  to  make  a  better  impression  upon 
you  than  I  did  when  defending  myself  before  the 
judges.  For  I  am  quite  ready  to  acknowledge,  Sim¬ 
mias  and  Cebes,  that  I  ought  to  be  grieved  at  death, 


PHAEDO 


193 


if  I  were  not  persuaded  that  I  am  going  to  other  gods 
who  are  wise  and  good  (of  this  I  am  as  certain  as  I 
can  be  of  anything  of  the  sort),  and  to  men  departed 
(though  I  am  not  so  certain  of  this)  who  are  better 
than  those  whom  I  leave  behind;  and  therefore  I  do 
not  grieve  as  I  might  have  done,  for  I  have  good  hope 
that  there  is  yet  something  remaining  for  the  dead, 
and  as  has  been  said  of  old,  some  far  better  thing  for 
the  good  than  for  the  evil. 

But  do  you  mean  to  take  away  your  thoughts  with 
you,  Socrates,  said  Simmias?  Will  you  not  commu¬ 
nicate  them  to  us? — the  benefit  is  one  in  which  we 
too  may  hope  to  share.  Moreover,  if  you  succeed  in 
convincing  us,  that  will  be  an  answer  to  the 
charge  against  yourself. 

I  will  do  my  best,  replied  Socrates.  But  you  must 
first  let  me  hear  what  Crito  wants ;  he  was  going  to  say 
something  to  me. 

Only  this,  Socrates,  replied  Crito :  —  the  attendant 
who  is  to  give  you  the  poison  has  been  telling  me  that 
you  are  not  to  talk  much,  and  he  wants  me  to  let  you 
know  this;  for  that  by  talking,  heat  is  increased,  and 
this  interferes  with  the  action  of  the  poison;  those  who 
excite  themselves  are  sometimes  obliged  to  drink  the 
poison  two  or  three  times. 

Then,  said  Socrates,  let  him  mind  his  business  and 
be  prepared  to  give  the  poison  two  or  three  times,  if 
necessary;  that  is  all. 

I  was  almost  certain  that  you  would  say  that,  re¬ 
plied  Crito;  but  I  was  obliged  to  satisfy  him. 

Never  mind  him,  he  said. 

And  now  I  will  make  answer  to  you,  O  my  judges, 
and  show  that  he  who  has  lived  as  a  true  philosopher 
has  reason  to  be  of  good  cheer  when  he  is  about  to  die, 
and  that  after  death  he  may  hope  to  receive  the 
greatest  good  in  the  other  world.  And  how  this  may 


194 


PHAEDO 


be,  Simmias  and  Cebes,  I  will  endeavor  to  explain. 
For  I  deem  that  the  true  disciple  of  philosophy  is 
likely  to  be  misunderstood  by  other  men ;  they  do  not 
perceive  that  he  is  ever  pursuing  death  and  dying;  and 
if  this  is  true,  why,  having  had  the  desire  of  death  all 
his  life  long,  should  he  repine  at  the  arrival  of  that 
which  he  has  been  always  pursuing  and  desiring? 

Simmias  laughed  and  said;  Though  not  in  a  laugh¬ 
ing  humor,  I  swear  that  I  can  not  help  laughing,  when 
I  think  what  the  wicked  world  wifi  say  when  they 
hear  this.  They  will  say  that  this  is  very  true,  and 
our  people  at  home  will  agree  with  them  in  saying 
that  the  life  which  philosophers  desire  is  truly  death, 
and  that  they  have  found  them  out  to  be  deserving  of 

the  death  which  they  desire. 

And  they  are  right,  Simmias,  in  saying  this,  with 
the  exception  of  the  words  “they  have  found  them 
out;”  for  they  have  not  found  out  what  is  the  nature 
of  this  death  which  the  true  philosopher  desires,  or 
how  he  deserves  or  desires  /death.  But  let  us  leave 
them  and  have  a  word  with  ourselves :  Do  we  believe 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  death  ? 

To  be  sure,  replied  Simmias. 

And  is  this  anything  but  the  separation  of  soul  and 
body?  And  being  dead  is  the  attainment  of  this 
separation  when  the  soul  exists  in  herself,  and  is 
parted  from  the  body  and  the  body  is  parted  from  the 
soul  —  that  is  death  ? 

Exactly:  that  and  nothing  else,  he  replied. 

And  what  do  you  say  of  another  question,  my 
friend,  about  which  I  should  like  to  have  your  opinion, 
and  the  answer  to  which  will  probably  throw  light 
on  our  present  inquiry:  Do  you  think  that  the 
philosopher  ought  to  care  about  the  pleasures  — if 
they  are  to  be  called  pleasures  of  eating  and  drink¬ 
ing? 


PHAEDO 


195 


Certainly  not,  answered  Simmias. 

And  what  do  you  say  of  the  pleasures  of  love  — 
should  he  care  about  them? 

By  no  means. 

And  will  he  think  much  of  the  other  ways  of  in¬ 
dulging  the  body,  for  example,  the  acquisition  of 
costly  raiment,  or  sandals  or  other  adornments  of  the 
body?  Instead  of  caring  about  them,  does  he  not 
rather  despise  anything  more  than  nature  needs? 
What  do  you  say? 

I  should  say  that  the  true  philosopher  would  despise 
them. 

Would  you  not  say  that  he  is  entirely  concerned 
with  the  soul  and  not  with  the  body?  He  would  like, 
as  far  as  he  can,  to  be  quit  of  the  body  and  turn  to  the 
soul. 

That  is  true. 

In  matters  of  this  sort  philosophers,  above  all  other 
men,  may  be  observed  in  every  sort  of  way  to  dissever 
the  soul  from  the  body. 

That  is  true. 

Whereas,  Simmias,  the  rest  of  the  world  are  of 
opinion  that  a  life  which  has  no  bodily  pleasures  and 
no  part  in  them  is  not  worth  having ;  but  that  he  who 
thinks  nothing  of  bodily  pleasures  is  almost  as  though 
he  wrere  dead. 

That  is  quite  true. 

What  again  shall  we  say  of  the  actual  acquirement 
of  knowledge  ?  —  is  the  body,  if  invited  to  share  in  the 
inquiry,  a  hinderer  or  a  helper?  I  mean  to  say,  have 
sight  and  hearing  any  truth  in  them?  Are  they  not, 
as  the  poets  are  always  telling  us,  inaccurate 
witnesses?  and  yet,  if  even  they  are  inaccurate  and 
indistinct,  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  other  senses?  —  for 
you  will  allow  that  they  are  the  best  of  them? 

Certainly,  he  replied. 


196 


PHAEDO 


Then  when  does  the  soul  attain  truth?  —  for  in  at¬ 
tempting  to  consider  anything  in  company  with  the 
body  she  is  obviously  deceived. 

Yes,  that  is  true. 

Then  must  not  existence  he  revealed  to  her  in 
thought,  if  at  all? 

Yes. 

And  thought  is  best  when  the  mind  is  gathered  into 
herself  and  none  of  these  things  trouble  her  —  neither 
sounds  nor  sights  nor  pain  nor  any  pleasure,  when 
she  has  as  little  as  possible  to  do  with  the  body,  and 
has  no  bodily  sense  or  feeling,  but  is  aspiring  after 

being? 

Thai;  is  true. 

And  in  this  the  philosopher  dishonors  the  body ;  his 
soul  runs  away  from  the  body  and  desires  to  be  alone 

and  by  herself? 

That  is  true. 

Well,  but  there  is  another  thing,  Simmias:  Is  there 
or  is  there  not  an  absolute  justice? 

Assuredly  there  is. 

And  an  absolute  beauty  and  absolute  good? 

Of  course. 

But  did  you  ever  behold  any  of  them  with  your 
eyes? 

Certainly  not. 

Or  did  you  ever  reach  them  with  any  other  bodily 
sense?  (and  I  speak  not  of  these  alone,  but  of  absolute 
greatness,  and  health,  and  strength,  and  of  the  essence 
or  true  nature  of  everything).  Has  the  reality  ot 
them  ever  been  perceived  by  you  through  the  bodily 
organs?  or  rather,  is  not  the  nearest  approach  to  the 
knowledge  of  their  several  natures  made  by  him  who 
so  orders  his  intellectual  vision  as  to  have  the  most 
exact  conception  of  the  essence  of  that  which  he  con- 

siders? 


PHAEDO 


197 


Certainly. 

And  he  attains  to  the  knowledge  of  them  in  their 
highest  purity  who  goes  to  each  of  them  with  the  mind 
alone,  not  allowing  when  in  the  act  of  thought  the 
intrusion  or  introduction  of  sight  or  any  other  sense 
in  the  company  of  reason,  but  with  the  very  light  of 
the  mind  in  her  clearness  penetrates  into  the  very  light 
of  truth  in  each;  he  has  got  rid,  as  far  as  he  can,  of 
eyes  and  ears  and  of  the  whole  body,  which  he  con¬ 
ceives  of  only  as  a  disturbing  element,  hindering  the 
soul  from  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  when  in  com¬ 
pany  with  her  —  is  not  this  the  sort  of  man  who,  if 
ever  man  did,  is  likely  to  attain  the  knowledge  of 
existence? 

There  is  admirable  truth  in  that,  Socrates,  replied 
Simmias. 

And  when  they  consider  all  this,  must  not  true 
philosophers  make  a  reflection,  of  which  they  will 
speak  to  one  another  in  such  words  as  these:  We  have 
found,  they  will  say,  a  path  of  speculation  which  seems 
to  bring  us  and  the  argument  to  the  conclusion,  that 
while  we  are  in  the  body,  and  while  the  soul  is  mingled 
with  this  mass  of  evil,  our  desire  will  not  be  satisfied, 
and  our  desire  is  of  the  truth.  For  the  body  is  a  source 
of  endless  trouble  to  us  by  reason  of  the  mere  require¬ 
ment  of  food;  and  also  is  liable  to  diseases  which  over¬ 
take  and  impede  us  in  the  search  after  truth:  and  by 
filling  us  as  full  of  loves,  and  lusts,  and  fears,  and 
fancies,  and  idols,  and  every  sort  of  folly,  prevents  our 
ever  having,  as  people  say,  so  much  as  a  thought. 
For  whence  come  wars,  and  fightings,  and  factions? 
whence  but  from  the  body  and  the  lusts  of  the  body? 
For  wars  are  occasioned  by  the  love  of  money,  and 
money  has  to  be  acquired  for  the  sake  and  in  the 
service  of  the  body;  and  in  consequence  of  all  these 
things  the  time  which  ought  to  be  given  to  philosophy 


198 


•-»  * 


PHAEDO 

is  lost.  Moreover,  if  there  is  time  and  an  inclination 
towards  philosophy,  yet  the  body  introduces  a  turmoil 
and  confusion  and  fear  into  the  course  of  speculation, 
and  hinders  us  from  seeing  the  truth;  and  all  ex¬ 
perience  shows  that  if  we  would  have  pure  knowledge 
of  anything  we  must  be  quit  of  the  body,  and  the  soul 
in  herself  must  behold  all  things  in  themselves :  then,  I 
suppose,  that  we  shall  attain  that  which  we  desire,  and 
of  which  we  say  that  we  are  lovers,  and  that  is  wisdom ; 
not  while  we  live,  but  after  death,  as  the  argument 
shows ;  for  if  while  in  company  with  the  body,  the  soul 
can  not  have  pure  knowledge,  one  of  two  things  seems 
to  follow  —  either  knowledge  is  not  to  be  attained  at 
all,  or,  if  at  all,  after  death.  For  then,  and  not  till 
then,  the  soul  will  be  in  herself  alone  and  without  the 
body.  In  this  present  life,  I  reckon  that  we  make  the 
nearest  approach  to  knowledge  when  we  have  the 
least  possible  concern  or  interest  in  the  body,  and  are 
not  saturated  with  the  bodily  nature,  but  remain  pure 
until  the  hour  when  God  himself  is  pleased  to  release 
us.  And  then  the  foolishness  of  the  body  will  be 
cleared  away  and  we  shall  be  pure  and  hold  converse 
with  other  pure  souls,  and  know  of  ourselves  the  clear 
light  everywhere;  and  this  is  surely  the  light  of  truth. 
For  no  impure  thing  is  allowed  to  approach  the  pure. 
These  are  the  sort  of  words,  Simmias,  which  the  true 
lovers  of  wisdom  can  not  help  saying  to  one  another, 
and  thinking.  You  will  agree  with  me  in  that? 

Certainly,  Socrates. 

But  if  this  is  true,  O  my  friend,  then  there  is  great 
hope  that,  going  whither  I  go,  I  shall  there  be  satisfied 
with  that  which  has  been  the  chief  concern  of  you  and 
me  in  our  past  lives.  And  now  that  the  hour  of  de¬ 
parture  is  appointed  to  me,  this  is  the  hope  with  which 
I  depart,  and  not  I  only,  but  every  man  who  believes 
that  he  has  his  mind  purified. 


PHAEDO 


199 


Certainly,  replied  Simmias. 

And  what  is  purification  but  the  separation  of  the 
soul  from  the  body,  as  I  was  saying  before ;  the  habit 
of  the  soul  gathering  and  collecting  herself  into  her¬ 
self,  out  of  all  the  courses  of  the  body;  the  dwelling  in 
her  own  place  alone,  as  in  another  life,  so  also  in  this, 
as  far  as  she  can ;  —  the  release  of  the  soul  from  the 
chains  of  the  body? 

Very  true,  he  said. 

And  what  is  that  which  is  termed  death,  but  this 
very  separation  and  release  of  the  soul  from  the  body? 

To  be  sure,  he  said. 

And  the  true  philosophers,  and  they  only,  study 
and  are  eager  to  release  the  soul.  Is  not  the  separation 
and  release  of  the  soul  from  the  body  their  especial 
study? 

That  is  true. 

And,  as  I  was  saying  at  first,  there  would  be  a 
ridiculous  contradiction  in  men  studying  to  live  as 
nearly  as  they  can  in  a  state  of  death,  and  yet  repining 
when  death  comes. 

Certainly. 

Then  Simmias,  as  the  true  philosophers  are  ever 
studying  death,  to  them,  of  all  men,  death  is  the  least 
terrible.  Look  at  the  matter  in  this  way :  —  how  in¬ 
consistent  of  them  to  have  been  always  enemies  of  the 
body,  and  wanting  to  have  the  soul  alone,  and  when 
this  is  granted  to  them,  to  be  trembling  and  repining ; 
instead  of  rejoicing  at  their  departing  to  that  place 
where,  when  they  arrive,  they  hope  to  gain  that  which 
in  life  they  loved  (and  this  was  wisdom),  and  at  the 
same  time  to  be  rid  of  the  company  of  their  enemy. 
Many  a  man  has  been  willing  to  go  to  the  world  below 
in  the  hope  of  seeing  there  an  earthly  love,  or  wife,  or 
son,  and  conversing  with  them.  And  will  he  who  is  a 
true  lover  of  wisdom,  and  is  persuaded  in  like  manner 


PHAEDO 


200 


it  only  in  the  world  below  he  can  worthily  enjoy 
still  repine  at  death?  Will  he  not  depart  with 
joy?  Surely,  he  will,  my  friend,  if  he  be  a  true 
philosopher.  For  he  will  have  a  firm  conviction  that 
there  only,  and  nowhere  else,  he  can  find  wdsdom  in 
her  purity.  And  if  this  be  true,  he  would  be  very 
absurd,  as  I  was  saying,  if  he  were  to  fear  death. 

He  would  indeed,  replied  Simmias. 

And  when  you  see  a  man  who  is  repining  at  the  ap¬ 
proach  of  death,  is  not  his  reluctance  a  sufficient  proof 
that  he  is  not  a  lover  of  wisdom,  but  a  lover  of  the 
body,  and  probably  at  the  same  time  a  lover  of  either 
money  or  power,  or  both? 

That  is  very  true,  he  replied. 

There  is  a  virtue,  Simmias,  which  is  named  courage. 
Is  not  that  a  special  attribute  of  the  philosopher? 

Certainly. 

Again,  there  is  temperance.  Is  not  the  calm,  and 
control,  and  disdain  of  the  passions  wdrich  even  the 
many  call  temperance,  a  quality  belonging  only  to 
those  who  despise  the  body,  and  five  in  philosophy  ? 

That  is  not  to  be  denied. 


For  the  courage  and  temperance  of  other  men,  if 
you  will  consider  them,  are  really  a  contradiction. 

How  is  that,  Socrates? 

Well,  he  said,  you  are  aware  that  death  is  regarded 
by  men  in  general  as  a  great  evil. 

That  is  true,  he  said. 

And  do  not  courageous  men  endure  death  because 
they  are  afraid  of  yet  greater  evils? 

That  is  true. 

Then  all  but  the  philosophers  are  courageous  only 
from  fear,  and  because  they  are  afraid;  and  yet  that  a 
man  should  be  courageous  from  fear,  and  because  he 
is  a  coward,  is  surely  a  strange  thing. 

Very  true. 


i 


PHAEDO 


201 


And  are  not  the  temperate  exactly  in  the  same  case  ? 
They  are  temperate  because  they  are  intemperate  — 
which  may  seem  to  be  a  contradiction,  but  is  never¬ 
theless  the  sort  of  thing  which  happens  with  this  foolish 
temperance.  F or  there  are  pleasures  which  they  must 
have,  and  are  afraid  of  losing;  and  therefore  they 
abstain  from  one  class  of  pleasures  because  they  arc 
overcome  by  another:  and  whereas  intemperance  is 
defined  as  “  being  under  the  dominion  of  pleasure,” 
they  overcome  only  because  they  are  overcome  by 
pleasure.  And  that  is  what  I  mean  by  saying  that 
they  are  temperate  through  intemperance. 

That  appears  to  be  true. 

Yet  the  exchange  of  one  fear  or  pleasure  or  pain 
for  another  fear  or  pleasure  or  pain,  which  are 
measured  like  coins,  the  greater  with  the  less,  is  not 
the  exchange  of  virtue.  O  my  dear  Simmias,  is  there 
not  one  true  coin  for  which  all  things  ought  to  ex¬ 
change  ?  —  and  that  is  wisdom ;  and  only  in  exchange 
for  this,  and  in  company  with  this,  is  anything  truly 
bought  or  sold,  whether  courage  or  temperance  or 
justice.  And  is  not  all  true  virtue  the  companion  of 
wdsdom,  no  matter  what  fears  or  pleasures  or  other 
similar  goods  or  evils  may  or  may  not  attend  her? 
But  the  virtue  which  is  made  up  of  these  goods,  when 
they  are  severed  from  wdsdom  and  exchanged  with  one 
another,  is  a  shadow  of  virtue  only,  nor  is  there  any 
freedom  or  health  or  truth  in  her;  but  in  the  true  ex¬ 
change  there  is  a  purging  away  of  all  these  things, 
and  temperance,  and  justice,  and  courage,  and  wisdom 
herself,  are  a  purgation  of  them.  And  I  conceive  that 
the  founders  of  the  mysteries  had  a  real  meaning  and 
were  not  mere  triflers  when  they  intimated  in  a  figure 
long  ago  that  he  who  passed  unsanctified  and  un¬ 
initiated  into  the  wrorld  below  will  live  in  a  slough,  but 
that  he  who  arrives  there  after  initiation  and  purifica- 


202 


PHAEDO 


tion  will  dwell  with  the  gods.  For  “  many,”  as  they 
say  in  the  mysteries,  “  are  the  thyrsus-bearers,  but  few 
are  the  mystics,”  —  meaning,  as  I  interpret  the  words, 
the  true  philosophers.  In  the  number  of  whom  I  have 
been  seeking,  according  to  my  ability,  to  find  a  place 
during  my  whole  life;  —  whether  I  have  sought  in  a 
right  way  or  not,  and  whether  I  have  succeeded  or  not, 
I  shall  truly  know  in  a  little  while,  if  God  will,  when  I 
myself  arrive  in  the  other  world:  that  is  my  belief. 
And  now  Simmias  and  Cebes,  I  have  answered  those 
who  charge  me  with  not  grieving  or  repining  at  part¬ 
ing  from  you  and  my  masters  in  this  world;  and  I  am 
right  in  not  repining,  for  I  believe  that  I  shall  find 
other  masters  and  friends  who  are  as  good  in  the  world 
below.  But  all  men  can  not  receive  this,  and  I  shall  be 
glad  if  my  words  have  any  more  success  with  you  than 
with  the  judges  of  Athenians. 

Cebes  answered:  I  agree,  Socrates,  in  the  greater 
part  of  what  you  say.  But  in  what  relates  to  the  soul, 
men  are  apt  to  be  incredulous ;  they  fear  that  when  she 
leaves  the  body  her  place  may  be  nowhere,  and  that 
on  the  very  day  of  death  she  may  be  destroyed  and 
perish  —  immediately  on  her  release  from  the  body, 
issuing  forth  like  smoke  or  air  and  vanishing  away 
into  nothingness.  For  if  she  could  only  hold  together 
and  be  herself  after  she  was  released  from  the  evils  of 
the  body,  there  would  be  good  reason  to  hope, 
Socrates,  that  what  you  say  is  true.  But  much  per¬ 
suasion  and  many  arguments  are  required  in  order  to 
prove  that  when  the  man  is  dead  the  soul  yet  exists, 
and  has  any  force  or  intelligence. 

True,  Cebes,  said  Socrates;  and  shall  I  suggest 
that  we  talk  a  little  of  the  probabilities  of  these 
things  ? 

I  am  sure,  said  Cebes,  that  I  should  greatly  like  to 
.  know  your  opinion  about  them. 


PHAEDO 


203 


I  reckon,  said  Socrates,  that  no  one  who  heard  me 
now,  not  even  if  he  were  one  of  my  old  enemies,  the 
comic  poets,  could  accuse  me  of  idle  talking  about 
matters  in  which  I  have  no  concern.  Let  us  then,  if 
you  please,  proceed  with  the  inquiry. 

Whether  the  souls  of  men  after  death  are  or  are  not 
in  the  world  below,  is  a  question  which  may  be  argued 
in  this  manner :  —  The  ancient  doctrine  of  which  I 
have  been  speaking  affirms  that  they  go  from  hence 
into  the  other  world,  and  return  hither,  and  are  born 
from  the  dead.  Now  if  this  be  true,  and  the  living 
come  from  the  dead,  then  our  souls  must  be  in  the 
other  world,  for  if  not,  how  could  they  be  born  again? 
And  this  would  be  conclusive,  if  there  were  any  real 
evidence  that  the  living  are  only  born  from  the  dead; 
but  if  there  is  no  evidence  of  this,  then  other  argu¬ 
ments  will  have  to  be  adduced. 

That  is  very  true,  replied  Cebes. 

Then  let  us  consider  this  question,  not  in  relation 
to  man  only,  but  in  relation  to  animals  generally,  and 
to  plants,  and  to  everything  of  which  there  is  gener¬ 
ation,  and  the  proof  will  be  easier.  Are  not  all  things 
which  have  opposites  generated  out  of  their  opposites? 
I  mean  such  things  as  good  and  evil,  just  and  unjust 
—  and  there  are  innumerable  other  opposites  which 
are  generated  out  of  opposites.  And  I  want  to  show 
that  this  holds  universally  of  all  opposites ;  I  mean  to 
say,  for  example,  that  anything  which  becomes  greater 
must  become  greater  after  being  less. 

True.. 

And  that  which  becomes  less  must  have  been  once 
greater  and  then  become  less. 

Yes. 

And  the  weaker  is  generated  from  the  stronger,  and 
the  swifter  from  the  slower. 

Very  true.  / 


204 


PHAEDO 


And  the  worst  is  from  the  better,  and  the  more  just 
is  from  the  more  unjust? 

Of  course. 

And  is  this  true  of  all  opposites?  and  are  we  con¬ 
vinced  that  all  of  them  are  generated  out  of  opposites? 

Yes. 

And  in  this  universal  opposition  of  all  things,  are 
there  not  also  two  intermediate  processes  which  are 
ever  going  on,  from  one  to  the  other,  and  hack  again , 
where  there  is  a  greater  and  a  less  there  is  also  an 
intermediate  process  of  increase  and  diminution,  and 
that  which  grows  is  said  to  wax,  and  that  which  decays 

to  wane? 

Yes,  he  said. 

And  there  are  many  other  processes,  such  as 
division  and  composition,  cooling  and  heating,  which 
equally  involve  a  passage  into  and  out  of  one  another. 
And  this  holds  of  all  opposites,  even  though  not 
always  expressed  in  words  —  they  are  generated  out 
of  one  another,  and  there  is  a  passing  or  process  from 

one  to  the  other  of  them? 

Very  true,  he  replied. 

Well,  and  is  there  not  an  opposite  of  life,  as  sleep 
is  the  opposite  of  waking? 

True,  he  said. 

And  what  is  that? 

Death,  he  answered. 

And  these  then  are  generated,  if  they  are  opposites, 
the  one  from  the  other,  and  have  there  their  two  inter¬ 
mediate  processes  also? 

Of  course. 

Now,  said  Socrates,  I  will  analyze  one  of  the  two 
pairs  of  opposites  which  I  have  mentioned  to  you,  and 
also  its  intermediate  processes,  and  you  shall  analyze 
the  other  to  me.  The  state  of  sleep  is  opposed  to  the 
state  of  waking,  and  out  of  sleeping  waking  is  gener- 


PHAEDO 


205 


ated,  and  out  of  waking,  sleeping;  and  the  process  of 
generation  is  in  the  one  case  falling  asleep,  and  in  the 
other  waking  up.  Are  you  agreed  about  that? 

Quite  agreed. 

Then,  suppose  that  you  analyze  life  and  death  to 
me  in  the  same  manner.  Is  not  death  opposed  to 
life? 

Yes. 

And  they  are  generated  one  from  the  other? 

Yes. 

What  is  generated  from  life? 

Death. 

And  what  from  death? 

I  can  only  say  in  answer  —  life. 

Then  the  living,  whether  things  or  persons,  Cebes, 
are  generated  from  the  dead? 

That  is  clear,  he  replied. 

Then  the  inference  is  that  our  souls  are  in  the  world 
below? 

That  is  true. 

And  one  of  the  true  processes  or  generations  is 
visible  —  for  surely  the  act  of  dying  is  visible? 

Surely,  he  said. 

And  may  not  the  other  be  inferred  as  the  comple¬ 
ment  of  nature,  who  is  not  to  be  supposed  to  go  on 
one  leg  only  ?  And  if  not,  a  corresponding  process  of 
generation  in  death  must  also  be  assigned  to  her? 

Certainly,  he  replied. 

And  what  is  that  process? 

Revival. 

And  revival,  if  there  be  such  a  thing,  is  the  birth  of 
the  dead  into  the  world  of  the  living? 

Quite  true. 

Then  here  is  a  new  way  in  which  we  arrive  at  the 
inference  that  the  living  come  from  the  dead,  just  as 
the  dead  come  from  the  living ;  and  if  this  is  true,  then 


206 


PHAEDO 


the  souls  of  the  dead  must  be  in  some  place  out  of  which 
they  come  again.  And  this,  as  I  think,  has  been  satis¬ 
factorily  proved. 

Yes,  Socrates,  he  said;  all  this  seems  to  flow  neces¬ 
sarily  out  of  our  previous  admissions.  > 

And  that  these  admissions  were  not  unfair,  Cebes, 
he  said,  may  be  shown,  as  I  think,  in  this  way:  It 
generation  were  in  a  straight  line  only,  and  theie  weie 
no  compensation  or  circle  in  nature,  no  turn  or  return 
into  one  another,  then  you  know  that  all  things  would 
at  last  have  the  same  form  and  pass  into  the  same 
state,  and  there  would  be  no  more  generation  of  them. 
What  do  you  mean?  he  said. 

A  simple  thing  enough,  which  I  will  illustrate  by 
the  case  of  sleep,  he  replied.  You  know  that  if  there 
were  no  compensation  of  sleeping  and  waking,  the 
story  of  the  sleeping  Endymion  would  in  the  end 
have  no  meaning,  because  all  other  things  would  be 
asleep  too,  and  he  would  not  be  thought  of.  Or  it 
there  were  composition  only,  and  no  division  ot  sub¬ 
stances,  then  the  chaos  of  Anaxagoras  would  come 
again.  And  in  like  manner,  my  dear  Cebes,  it  all 
things  which  partook  of  life  were  to  die,  and  after 
they  were  dead  remained  in  the  form  df  death,  and  did 
not  come  to  life  again,  all  would  at  last  die,  and  noth¬ 
in  o-  would  be  alive  — how  could  this  be  otherwise. 
For  if  the  living  spring  from  any  others  who  are  not 
the  dead,  and  they  die,  must  not  all  things  at  last  be 

swallowed  up  in  death?  , 

There  is  no  escape  from  that,  Socrates,  said  Cebes; 

and  I  think  that  what  you  say  is  entirely  true. 

Yes,  he  said,  Cebes,  I  entirely  think  so  too;  and 
we  are  not  walking  in  a  vain  imagination:  but  I  am 
confident  in  the  belief  that  there  truly  is  such  a  thing 
as  living  again,  and  that  the  living  spring  from  the 
dead  and  that  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  in  existence. 


PHAEDO 


and  that  the  good  souls  have  a  better  port!! 
evil. 

Cebes  added:  Your  favorite  doctrine,  Socrates^ 
knowledge  is  simply  recollection,  if  true,  also  ne<S 
sarily  implies  a  previous  time  in  which  we  learned  that 
which  we  now  recollect.  But  this  would  be  impossible 
unless  our  soul  was  in  some  place  before  existing  in 
the  human  form ;  here  then  is  another  argument  of  the 
soul’s  immortality. 

But  tell  me,  Cebes,  said  Simmias,  interposing,  what 
proofs  are  given  of  this  doctrine  of  recollection?  I 
am  not  very  sure  at  this  moment  that  I  remember 
them. 


One  excellent  proof,  said  Cebes,  is  afforded  by 
questions.  If  you  put  a  question  to  a  person  in  a  right 
way,  he  will  give  a  true  answer  of  himself,  but  how 
could  he  do  this  unless  there  were  knowledge  and 
right  reason  already  in  him?  And  this  is  most  clearly 
shown  when  he  is  taken  to  a  diagram  or  to  anything 
of  that  sort. 

But  if,  said  Socrates,  you  are  still  incredulous,  Sim¬ 
mias,  I  would  ask  you  whether  you  may  not  agree 
with  me  when  you  look  at  the  matter  in  another  way ; 
—  I  mean,  if  you  are  still  incredulous  as  to  whether 
knowledge  is  recollection? 

Incredulous,  I  am  not,  said  Simmias;  but, I  want 
to  have  this  doctrine  of  recollection  brought  to  my 
own  recollection,  and,  from  what  Cebes  has  said,  I  am 
beginning  to  recollect  and  be  convinced :  but  I  should 
still  like  to  hear  what  more  you  have  to  say. 

This  is  what  I  should  say,  he  replied:  —  We  should 
agree,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  that  what  a  man  recol¬ 
lects  he  must  have  known  at  some  previous  time. 

Very  true. 

And  what  is  the  nature  of  this  recollection?  And, 
in  asking  this,  I  mean  to  ask,  whether  when  a  person 


J 


PHAEDO 


seen  or  heard  or  in  any  way  perceived 
lg,  and  he  knows  not  only  that,  but  something 
U1  which  he  has  not  the  same  but  another  knowl¬ 
edge,  we  may  not  fairly  say  that  he  recollects  that 
which  comes  into  his  mind.  Are  we  agreed  about 

that? 

What  do  you  mean?  ,  .  ..  . 

S  I  mean  what  I  may  illustrate  by  the  following  in¬ 
stance:— The  knowledge  of 'a  lyre  is  not  the  same 
as  the  knowledge  of  a  man? 


And  yet  what  is  the  feeling  of  lovers  when  they 
recognize  a  lyre,  or  a  garment,  or  anything  else  which 
the  beloved  has  been  in  the  habit  of  using?  Do  not 
they,  from  knowing  the  lyre,  form  in  the  mind  s  eye 
an ‘image  of  the  youth  to  whom  the  lyre  belongs? 
And  this  is  recollection:  and  in  the  same  way  any  one 
who  sees  Simmias  may  remember  Cebes;  and  there 
are  endless  other  things  of  the  same  nature. 

Yes,  indeed,  there  are,  —  endless,  replied  Simmias. 

And  this  sort  of  thing,  he  said,  is  recollection,  and 
is  most  commonly  a  process  of  recovering  that  which 
has  been  forgotten  through  time  and  inattention. 

Very  true,  he  said.  . 

Well;  and  may  you  not  also  from  seeing  the  pic¬ 
ture  of  a  horse  or  a  lyre  remember  a  man?  and  irom 
the  picture  of  Simmias,  you  may  he  led  to  remember 


Cebes? 

True  • 

Or  you  may  also  be  led  to  the  recollection  of  Sim¬ 
mias  himself? 

^me  he  said. 

And  in  all  these  cases,  the  recollection  may  be  de 
rived  from  things  either  like  or  unlike? 


That  is  true. 

And  when  the  recollection  is  derived  from  like 


PHAEDO 


209 


things,  then  there  is  sure  to  be  another  question,  which 
is  —  whether  the  likeness  of  that  which  is  recollected 
is  in  any  way  defective  or  not? 

Very  true,  he  said. 

And  shall  we  proceed  a  step  further,  and  affirm  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  equality,  not  of  wood  with 
wood,  or  of  stone  with  stone,  but  that,  over  and  above 
this,  there  is  equality  in  the  abstract  ?  Shall  we  affirm 
this? 

Affirm,  yes,  and  swear  to  it,  replied  Simmias,  with 
all  the  confidence  in  life. 

And  do  we  know  the  nature  of  this  abstract  essence  ? 

To  be  sure,  he  said. 

And  whence  did  we  obtain  this  knowledge?  Did 
we  not  see  equalities  of  material  things,  such  as  pieces 
of  wood  and  stones,  and  gather  from  them  the  idea 
of  an  equality  which  is  different  from  them?  —  you 
will  admit  that?  Or  look  at  the  matter  again  in  this 
way :  —  Do  not  the  same  pieces  of  wood  or  stone  ap¬ 
pear  at  one  time  equal,  and  at  another  time  un¬ 
equal? 

That  is  certain. 

But  are  real  equals  ever  unequal?  or  is  the  idea  of 
equality  ever  inequality  ? 

That  surely  was  never  yet  known,  Socrates. 

Then  these  (so-called)  equals  are  not  the  same  with 
the  idea  of  equality? 

I  should  say,  clearly  not,  Socrates. 

And  yet  from  these  equals,  although  differing  from 
the  idea  of  equality,  you  conceived  and  attained  that 
idea? 

Very  true,  he  said. 

Which  might  be  like,  or  might  be  unlike  them? 

Yes. 

But  that  makes  no  difference:  whenever  from  see¬ 
ing  one  thing  you  conceived  another,  whether  like  or 


210 


PHAEDO 


unlike,  there  must  surely  have  been  an  act  of  recol¬ 
lection? 

Very  true. 

But  what  would  you  say  of  equal  portions  of  wood 
and  stone,  or  other  material  equals?  and  what  is  toe 
impression  produced  by  them?  Are  they  equals  m  the 
same  sense  as  absolute  equality  ?  or  do  they  fall  short 
of  this  in  a  measure? 

Yes,  he  said,  in  a  very  great  measure  too. 

And  must  we  not  allow,  that  when  I  or  any  one 
look  at  any  object,  and  perceive  that  the  object  aims 
at  being  some  other  thing,  hut  falls  short  of,  and  can 
not  attain  to  it,  —  he  who  makes  this  observation 
must  have  had  a  previous  knowledge  of  that  to  which, 
as  he  says,  the  other,  although  similar,  was  interior. 

Certainly. 

And  has  not  this  been  our  own  case  in  the  matter 
of  equals  and  of  absolute  equality? 

Precisely. 

Then  we  must  have  known  absolute  equality  pre¬ 
viously  to  the  time  when  we  first  saw  the  material 
equals,  and  reflected  that  all  these  apparent  equals 
aim  at  this  absolute  equality,  but  fall  short  of  it . 

That  is  true.  ,  _  ^  r. 

And  we  recognize  also  that  this  absolute  equality 

has  only  been  known,  and  can  only  be  known,  through 
the  medium  of  sight  or  touch,  or  of  some  other  sense. 
And  this  I  would  affirm  of  all  such  conceptions. 

Yes,  Socrates,  as  far  as  the  argument  is  concerned, 

one  of  them  is  the  same  as  the  other. 

And  from  the  sense  then  is  derived  the  know  ledge 
that  all  sensible  things  aim  at  an  idea  of  equality  o 
which  they  fall  short  —  is  not  that  true? 

Yes. 

Then  before  we  began  to  see  or  hear  or  perceive  in 
any  way,  we  must  have  had  a  knowledge  of  absolute 


PHAEDO 


211 


equality,  or  we  could  not  have  referred  to  that 
the  equals  which  are  derived  from  the  senses?  — 
for  to  that  they  all  aspire,  and  of  that  they  fall 
short? 

That,  Socrates,  is  certainly  to  be  inferred  from  the 
previous  statements. 

And  did  we  not  see  and  hear  and  acquire  our  other 
senses  as  soon  as  we  were  bom? 

Certainly. 

Then  we  must  have  acquired  the  knowledge  of  the 
ideal  equal  at  some  time  previous  to  this  ?  * 

Yes. 

That  is  to  say,  before  we  were  born,  I  suppose? 

True. 

And  if  we  acquired  this  knowledge  before  we  were 
born,  and  were  born  having  it,  then  we  also  knew 
before  we  were  born  and  at  the  instant  of  birth  not 
only  the  equal  or  the  greater  or  the  less,  but  all  other 
ideas ;  for  we  are  not  speaking  only  of  equality  abso¬ 
lute,  but  of  beauty,  good,  justice,  holiness,  and  all 
which  we  stamp  with  the  name  of  essence  in  the  dia¬ 
lectical  process,  when  we  ask  and  answer  questions. 
Of  all  this  we  may  certainly  affirm  that  we  acquired 
the  knowledge  before  birth? 

That  is  true. 

But  if,  after  having  acquired,  we  have  not  forgot¬ 
ten  that  which  we  acquired,  then  we  must  always  have 
been  born  with  knowledge,  and  shall  always  continue 
to  know  as  long  as  life  lasts  —  for  knowing  is  the 
acquiring  and  retaining  knowledge  and  not  forget¬ 
ting.  Is  not  forgetting,  Simmias,  just  the  losing  of 
knowledge? 

Quite  true,  Socrates. 

But  if  the  knowledge  which  we  acquired  before 
birth  was  lost  by  us  at  birth,  and  if  afterwards  by  the 
use  of  the  senses  we  recovered  that  which  we  previously 


212 


PHAEDO 


knew,  will  not  that  which  we  call  learning  be  a  process 
of  recovering  our  knowledge,  and  may  not  this  be 
rightly  termed  recollection  by  us  ? 

Very  true. 

For  this  is  clear  —  that  when  we  perceived  some¬ 
thing,  either  by  the  help  of  sight,  or  hearing,  or  some 
other  sense,  there  was  no  difficulty  in  receiving  from 
this  a  conception  of  some  other  thing  like  or  unlike 
which  had  been  forgotten  and  which  was  associated 
with  this;  and  therefore,  as  I  was  saying,  one  of  two 
alternatives  follows:  —  either  we  had  this  knowledge 
at  birth,  and  continued  to  know  through  life;  or,  after 
birth,  those  who  are  said  to  learn  only  remember,  and 
learning  is  recollection  only. 

Yes,  that  is  quite  true,  Socrates. 

And  which  alternative,  Simmias,  do  you  prefer? 
Had  we  the  knowledge  at  our  birth,  or  did  we  remem¬ 
ber  afterwards  the  things  which  we  knew  previously 
to  our  birth? 

I  can  not  decide  at  the  moment. 

At  any  rate  you  can  decide  whether  he  who  has 
knowledge  ought  or  ought  not  to  be  able  to  give  a 
reason  for  what  he  knows. 

Certainly,  he  ought. 

But  do  you  think  that  every  man  is  able  to  give  a 
reason  about  these  very  matters  of  which  we  are  speak¬ 
ing? 

I  wish  that  they  could,  Socrates,  but  I  greatly  fear 
that  to-morrow  at  this  time  there  will  be  no  one  able 


to  give  a  reason  worth  having. 

Then  you  are  not  of  opinion,  Simmias,  that  all  men 

know  these  things  ? 

Certainly  not. 

Then  they  are  in  process  of  recollecting  that  which 
they  learned  before? 

Certainly. 


PHAEDO 


213 


But  when  did  our  souls  acquire  this  knowledge?  — 
not  since  we  were  born  as  men  ? 

Certainly  not. 

And  therefore,  previously? 

Yes. 

Then,  Simmias,  our  souls  must  have  existed  before 
they  were  in  the  form  of  man  —  without  bodies,  and 
must  have  had  intelligence. 

Unless  indeed  you  suppose,  Socrates,  that  these 
notions  were  given  us  at  the  moment  of  birth ;  for  this 
is  the  only  time  that  remains. 

Yes,  my  friend,  but  when  did  we  lose  them?  for 
they  are  not  in  us  when  we  are  born  —  that  is  ad¬ 
mitted.  Did  we  lose  them  at  the  moment  of  receiving 
them,  or  at  some  other  time? 

No,  Socrates,  I  perceive  that  I  was  unconsciously 
talking  nonsense. 

Then  may  we  not  say,  Simmias,  that  if,  as  we  are 
always  repeating,  there  is  an  absolute  beauty,  and 
goodness,  and  essence  in  general,  and  to  this,  which  is 
now  discovered  to  be  a  previous  condition  of  our  being, 
we  refer  all  our  sensations,  and  with  this  compare 
them  —  assuming  this  to  have  a  prior  existence,  then 
our  souls  must  have  had  a  prior  existence,  but  if  not, 
there  would  be  no  force  in  the  argument.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  if  these  absolute  ideas  existed  before 
we  were  born,  then  our  souls  must  have  existed  before 
we  were  born,  and  if  not  the  ideas,  then  not  the 
souls. 

Yes,  Socrates;  I  am  convinced  that  there  is  pre¬ 
cisely  the  same  necessity  for  the  existence  of  the  soul 
before  birth,  and  of  the  essence  of  which  you  are 
speaking:  and  the  argument  arrives  at  a  result  which 
happily  agrees  with  my  own  notion.  For  there  is 
nothing  which  to  my  mind  is  so  evident  as  that  beauty, 
good,  and  other  notions  of  which  you  were  just  now 


214 


PHAEDO 


speaking,  have  a  most  real  and  absolute  existence ;  and 

I  am  satisfied  with  the  proof. 

Well,  but  is  Cebes  equally  satisfied?  for  I  must 

convince  him  too. 

I  think,  said  Simmias,  that  Cebes  is  satisfied:  al¬ 
though  he  is  the  most  incredulous  of  mortals,  yet  I 
believe  that  he  is  convinced  of  the  existence  of  the  soul 
before  birth.  But  that  after  death  the  soul  will  con¬ 
tinue  to  exist  is  not  yet  proven  even  to  my  own  satis¬ 
faction.  I  can  not  get  rid  of  the  feelings  of  the  many 
to  which  Cebes  was  referring  —  the  feeling  that  when 
the  man  dies  the  soul  may  be  scattered,  and  that  this 
may  be  the  end  of  her.  For  admitting  that  she  may 
be  generated  and  created  in  some  other  place,  and  may 
have  existed  before  entering  the  human  body,  why 
after  having  entered  in  and  gone  out  again  may  she 
not  herself  be  destroyed  and  come  to  an  end  ? 

Very  true,  Simmias,  said  Cebes;  that  our  soul  ex¬ 
isted  before  we  were  born  was  the  first  half  of  the 
argument,  and  this  appears  to  have  been  proven;  that 
the  soul  will  exist  after  death  as  well  as  before  birth 
is  the  other  half  of  which  the  proof  is  still  wanting, 
and  has  to  be  supplied. 

But  that  proof,  Simmias  and  Cebes,  has  been  al¬ 
ready  given,  said  Socrates,  if  you  put  the  two  argu¬ 
ments  together  —  I  mean  this  and  the  former  one, 
in  which  we  admitted  that  everything  living  is  born 
of  the  dead.  For  if  the  soul  existed  before  birth,  and 
in  coming  to  life  and  being  born  can  be  born  only  from 
death  and  dying,  must  she  not  after  death  continue  to 
exist,  since  she  has  to  be  born  again?  surely  the  proof 
which  you  desire  has  been  already  furnished.  Still  I 
suspect  that  you  and  Simmias  would  be  glad  to  probe 
the  argument  further:  like  children,  you  are  haunted 
with  a  fear  that  when  the  soul  leaves  the  body,  the 
wind  may  really  blow  her  away  and  scatter  her;  espe- 


PHAEDO 


215 


dally  if  a  man  should  happen  to  die  in  stormy  weather 
and  not  when  the  sky  is  calm. 

Cebes  answered  with  a  smile:  Then,  Socrates,  you 
must  argue  us  out  of  our  fears  —  and  yet,  strictly 
speaking,  they  are  not  our  fears,  but  there  is  a  child 
within  us  to  whom  death  is  a  sort  of  hobgoblin;  him 
too  we  must  persuade  not  to  be  afraid  when  he  is  alone 
with  him  in  the  dark. 

Socrates  said :  Let  the  voice  of  the  charmer  be  ap¬ 
plied  daily  until  you  have  charmed  him  away. 

And  where  shall  we  find  a  good  charmer  of  our 
fears,  Socrates,  when  you  are  gone? 

Hellas,  he  replied,  is  a  large  place,  Cebes,  and  has 
many  good  men,  and  there  are  barbarous  races  not  a 
few:  seek  for  him  among  them  all,  far  and  wide, 
sparing  neither  pains  nor  money;  for  there  is  no  bet¬ 
ter  way  of  using  your  money.  And  you  must  not 
forget  to  seek  for  him  among  yourselves  too;  for  he 
is  nowhere  more  likely  to  be  found. 

The  search,  replied  Cebes,  shall  certainly  be  made. 
And  now,  if  you  please,  let  us  return  to  the  point  of 
the  argument  at  which  we  digressed. 

By  all  means,  replied  Socrates;  what  else  should 
I  please? 

Very  good,  he  said. 

Must  we  not,  said  Socrates,  ask  ourselves  some  ques¬ 
tion  of  this  sort?  —  What  is  that  which,  as  we  imag¬ 
ine,  is  liable  to  be  scattered  away,  and  about  which  we 
fear?  and  what  again  is  that  about  which  we  have  no 
fear?  And  then  we  may  proceed  to  inquire  whether 
that  which  suffers  dispersion  is  or  is  not  of  the  nature 
of  soul  —  our  hopes  and  fears  as  to  our  own  souls 
will  turn  upon  that. 

That  is  true,  he  said. 

Now  the  compound  or  composite  may  be  supposed 
to  be  naturally  capable  of  being  dissolved  in  like  man- 


216 


PHAEDO 


ner  as  of  being  compounded;  but  that  which  is  un¬ 
compounded,  and  that  only,  must  be,  if  anything  is, 
indissoluble. 

Yes;  that  is  what  I  should  imagine,  said  Cebes. 

And  the  uncompounded  may  be  assumed  to  be  the 
same  and  unchanging,  whereas  the  compound  is  al¬ 
ways  changing  and  never  the  same? 

That  I  also  think,  he  said. 

Then  now  let  us  return  to  the  previous  discussion. 
Is  that  idea  or  essence,  which  in  the  dialectical  process 
we  define  as  essence  or  true  existence  —  whether  es¬ 
sence  of  equality,  beauty,  or  anything  else  —  are  these 
essences,  I  say,  liable  at  times  to  some  degree  of 
change?  or  are  they  each  of  them  always  what  they 
are,  having  the  same  simple  self-existent  and  un¬ 
changing  forms,  and  not  admitting  of  variation  at  all, 
or  in  any  way,  or  at  any  time  ? 

They  must  be  always  the  same,  Socrates,  replied 

Cebes. 

And  what  would  you  say  of  the  many  beautiful  — 
whether  men  or  horses  or  garments  or  any  other  things 
which  may  be  called  equal  or  beautiful,  —  are  they  all 
unchanging  and  the  same  always,  or  quite  the  reverse? 
May  they  not  rather  be  described  as  almost  always 
changing  and  hardly  ever  the  same,  either  with  them¬ 
selves  or  with  one  another? 

The  latter,  replied  Cebes;  they  are  always  in  a 

state  of  change. 

And  these  you  can  touch  and  see  and  perceive  with 
the  senses,  but  the  unchanging  things  you  can  only 
perceive  with  the  mind  —  they  are  invisible  and  are 
not  seen? 

That  is  very  true,  he  said. 

Well  then,  he  added,  let  us  suppose  that  there  are 
two  sorts  of  existences  —  one  seen,  the  other  unseen. 

Let  us  suppose  them. 


PHAEDO 


217 

The  seen  is  the  changing,  and  the  unseen  is  the 
unchanging  ? 

That  may  be  also  supposed. 

And,  further,  is  not  one  part  of  us  body,  and  the 
rest  of  us  soul? 

To  be  sure. 

And  to  which  class  may  we  say  that  the  body  is 
more  alike  and  akin? 

Clearly  to  the  seen :  no  one  can  doubt  that. 

And  is  the  soul  seen  or  not  seen? 

Not  by  man,  Socrates. 

And  by  “  seen  ”  and  “  not  seen  ”  is  meant  by  us 
that  which  is  or  is  not  visible  to  the  eye  of  man  ? 

Yes,  to  the  eye  of  man. 

And  what  do  we  say  of  the  soul?  —  is  that  seen  or 
not  seen? 

Not  seen. 

Unseen  then? 

Yes. 

Then  the  soul  is  more  like  to  the  unseen,  and  the 
body  to  the  seen? 

That  is  most  certain,  Socrates. 

And  were  we  not  saying  long  ago  that  the  soul 
when  using  the  body  as  an  instrument  of  perception, 
that  is  to  say,  when  using  the  sense  of  sight  or  hear¬ 
ing  or  some  other  sense  (for  the  meaning  of  perceiv¬ 
ing  through  the  body  is  perceiving  through  the 
senses)  —  were  we  not  saying  that  the  soul  too  is  then 
dragged  by  the  body  into  the  region  of  the  changeable, 
and  wanders  and  is  confused;  the  world  spins  round 
her,  and  she  is  like  a  drunkard  when  under  their  in¬ 
fluence  ? 

Very  true. 

But  when  returning  into  herself  she  reflects;  then 
she  passes  into  the  realm  of  purity,  and  eternity,  and 
immortality,  and  unchangeableness,  which  are  her  kin- 


218 


PHAEDO 


dred,  and  with  them  she  ever  lives,  when  she  is  by 
herself  and  is  not  let  or  hindered;  then  she  ceases 
from  her  erring  ways,  and  being  in  communion  with 
the  unchanging  is  unchanging.  And  this  state  of  the 
soul  is  called  wisdom? 

That  is  well  and  truly  said,  Socrates,  he  replied. 

And  to  which  class  is  the  soul  more  nearly  alike  and 
akin,  as  far  as  may  be  inferred  from  this  argument, 
as  well  as  from  the  preceding  one? 

I  think,  Socrates,  that,  in  the  opinion  of  every  one 
who  follows  the  argument,  the  soul  will  be  infinitely 
more  like  the  unchangeable  —  even  the  most  stupid 
person  will  not  deny  that. 

And  the  body  is  more  like  the  changing  ? 

Yes.  •  , 

Yet  once  more  consider  the  matter  in  this  light: 

When  the  soul  and  the  body  are  united,  then  nature 
orders  the  soul  to  rule  and  govern,  and  the  body  to 
obey  and  serve.  Now  which  of  these  two  functions 
is  akin  to  the  divine?  and  which  to  the  mortal?  Does 
not  the  divine  appear  to  you  to  be  that  which  naturally 
orders  and  rules,  and  the  mortal  that  which  is  subject 
and  servant  ?  • 

True. 

And  which  does  the  soul  resemble? 

The  soul  resembles  the  divine,  and  the  body  the 
mortal  —  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  that,  Socrates. 

Then  reflect,  Cebes :  is  not  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter  this  —  that  the  soul  is  in  the  very  like¬ 
ness  of  the  divine,  and  immortal,  and  intelligible,  and 
uniform,  and  indissoluble,  and  unchangeable ;  and  the 
body  is  in  the  very  likeness  of  the  human,  and  mortal, 
and  unintelligible,  and  multiform,  and  dissoluble,  and 
changeable.  Can  this,  my  dear  Cebes,  be  denied? 

No  indeed. 

But  if  this  is  true,  then  is  not  the  body  liable  to 


PHAEDO 


219 


speedy  dissolution?  and  is  not  the  soul  almost  or  alto¬ 
gether  indissoluble? 

Certainly. 

And  do  you  further  observe,  that  after  a  man  is 
dead,  the  body,  which  is  the  visible  part  of  man,  and 
has  a  visible  framework,  which  is  called  a  corpse,  and 
which  would  naturally  be  dissolved  and  decomposed 
and  dissipated,  is  not  dissolved  or  decomposed  at  once, 
but  may  remain  for  a  good  while,,  if  the  constitution 
be  sound  at  the  time  of  death,  and  the  season  of  the 
year  favorable?  For  the  body  when  shrunk  and  em¬ 
balmed,  as  is  the  custom  in  Egypt,  may  remain  almost 
entire  through  infinite  ages;  and  even  in  decay,  still 
there  are  some  portions,  such  as  the  bones  and  liga¬ 
ments,  which  are  practically  indestructible.  You 
allow  that? 

Yes. 

And  are  we  to  suppose  that  the  soul,  which  is  in¬ 
visible,  in  passing  to  the  true  Hades,  which  like  her 
is  invisible,  and  pure,  and  noble,  and  on  her  way  to 
the  good  and  wise  God,  whither,  if  God  will,  my  soul 
is  also  soon  to  go,  —  that  the  soul,  I  repeat,  if  this  be 
her  nature  and  origin,  is  blown  away  and  perishes 
immediately  on  quitting  the  body,  as  the  many  sav? 
That  can  never  be,  my  dear  Simmias  and  Cebes.  The 
truth  rather  is,  that  the  soul  which  is  pure  at  departing 
draws  after  her  no  bodily  taint,  having  never  volun¬ 
tarily  had  connection  with  the  body,  which  she  is  ever 
avoiding,  herself  gathered  into  herself;  for  such 
abstraction  has  been  the  study  of  her  life.  And  what 
does  this  mean  but  that  she  has  been  a  true  disciple 
of  philosophy,  and  has  practised  how  to  die  easily? 
And  is  not  philosophy  the  practice  of  death  ? 

Certainly. 

That  soul,  I  say,  herself  invisible,  departs  to  the 
invisible  world  —  to  the  divine  and  immortal  and 


220 


PHAEDO 


rational:  thither  arriving,  she  lives  in  bliss  and  is 
released  from  the  error  and  folly  of  men,  their  fears 
and  wild  passions  and  all  other  human  ills,  and  for¬ 
ever  dwells,  as  they  say  of  the  initiated,  in  company 
with  the  gods?  Is  not  this  true,  Cebes? 

Yes,  said  Cebes,  beyond  a  doubt. 

But  the  soul  which  has  been  polluted,  and  is  im¬ 
pure  at  the  time  of  her  departure,  and  is  the  compan¬ 
ion  and  servant  of  the  body  always,  and  is  in  love 
with  and  fascinated  by  the  body  and  by  the  desires 
and  pleasures  of  the  body,  until  she  is  led  to  believe 
that  the  truth  only  exists  in  a  bodily  form,  which  a 
man  may  touch  and  see  and  taste  and  use  for  the  pur¬ 
poses  of  his  lusts,  —  the  soul,  I  mean,  accustomed  to 
hate  and  fear  and  avoid  the  intellectual  principle, 
which  to  the  bodily  eye  is  dark  and  invisible,  and  can 
be  attained  only  by  philosophy,  —  do  you  suppose 
that  such  a  soul  as  this  will  depart  pure  and  unalloyed? 

That  is  impossible,  he  replied. 

She  is  engrossed  by  the  corporeal,  which  the  con¬ 
tinual  association  and  constant  care  of  the  body  have 
made  natural  to  her. 

Very  true. 

And  this,  my  friend,  may  be  conceived  to  be  that 
heavy,  weighty,  earthy  element  of  sight  by  which  such 
a  soul  is  depressed  and  dragged  down  again  into  the 
visible  world,  because  she  is  afraid  of  the  invisible 
and  of  the  world  below  —  prowling  about  tombs  and 
sepulchres,  in  the  neighborhood  of  which,  as  they  tell 
us,  are  seen  certain  ghostly  apparitions  of  souls  which 
have  not  departed  pure,  but  are  cloyed  with  sight  and 
therefore  visible.1 

1  Compare  Milton,  Comus,  463  foil. :  — 

“  But  when  lust, 

By  unchaste  looks,  loose  gestures,  and  foul  talk. 

But  most  by  lewd  and  lavish  act  of  sin, 

Lets  in  defilement  to  the  inward  parts, 


PHAEDO 


221 


That  is  very  likely,  Socrates. 

Yes,  that  is  very  likely,  Cebes;  and  these  must  be 
the  souls,  not  of  the  good,  but  of  the  evil,  who  are 
compelled  to  wander  about  such  places  in  payment 
of  the  penalty  of  their  former  evil  way  of  life;  and 
they  continue  to  wander  until  the  desire  which  haunts 
them  is  satisfied  and  they  are  imprisoned  in  another 
body.  And  they  may  be  supposed  to  be  fixed  in  the 
same  natures  which  they  had  in  their  former  life. 

What  natures  do  you  mean,  Socrates? 

I  mean  to  say  that  men  who  have  followed  after 
gluttony,  and  wantonness,  and  drunkenness,  and  have 
had  no  thought  of  avoiding  them,  would  pass  into 
asses  and  animals  of  that  sort.  What  do  you  think  ? 

I  think  that  exceedingly  probable. 

And  those  who  have  chosen  the  portion  of  injustice, 
and  tyranny,  and  violence,  will  pass  into  wolves,  or 
hawks  and  kites ;  —  whither  else  can  we  suppose  them 
to  go? 

Yes,  said  Cebes;  that  is  doubtless  the  place  of  na¬ 
tures  such  as  theirs. 

And  there  is  no  difficulty,  he  said,  in  assigning  to 
all  of  them  places  answering  to  their  several  natures 
and  propensities? 

There  is  not,  he  said. 

Even  among  them  some  are  happier  than  others; 
and  the  happiest  both  in  themselves  and  their  place  of 
abode  are  those  who  have  practised  the  civil  and  social 
virtues  which  are  called  temperance  and  justice,  and 


The  soul  grows  clotted  by  contagion, 

Imbodies,  and  imbrutes,  till  she  quite  lose 
The  divine  property  of  her  first  being. 

Such  are  those  thick  and  gloomy  shadows  damp 
Oft  seen  in  charnel  vaults  and  sepulchres, 
Lingering,  and  sitting  by  a  new  made  grave, 

As  loath  to  leave  the  body  that  it  lov’d, 

And  linked  itself  by  carnal  sensuality 
To  a  degenerate  and  degraded  state.” 


222 


PHAEDO 


are  acquired  by  habit  and  attention  without  philoso¬ 
phy  and  mind. 

Why  are  they  the  happiest  ? 

Because  they  may  be  expected  to  pass  into  some 
gentle  social  nature  which  is  like  their  own,  such  as 
that  of  bees  or  ants,  or  even  back  again  into  the  form 
of  man,  and  just  and  moderate  men  spring  from  them. 

That  is  not  impossible. 

But  he  who  is  a  philosopher  or  lover  of  learning, 
and  is  entirely  pure  at  departing,  is  alone  permitted 
to  reach  the  gods.  And  this  is  the  reason,  Simmias 
and  Cebes,  why  the  true  votaries  of  philosophy  abstain 
from  all  fleshly  lusts,  and  endure  and  refuse  to  give 
themselves  up  to  them,  —  not  because  they  fear  pov¬ 
erty  or  the  ruin  of  their  families,  like  the  lovers  of 
money,  and  the  world  in  general;  nor  like  the  lovers 
of  power  and  honor,  because  they  dread  the  dishonor 
or  disgrace  of  evil  deeds. 

No,  Socrates,  that  would  not  become  them,  said 
Cebes. 

No  indeed,  he  replied;  and  therefore  they  who  have 
a  care  of  their  souls,  and  do  not  merely  live  in  the 
fashions  of  the  body,  say  farewell  to  all  this ;  they  will 
not  walk  in  the  ways  of  the  blind :  and  when  philoso¬ 
phy  offers  them  purification  and  release  from  evil, 
they  feel  that  they  ought  not  to  resist  her  influence, 
and  to  her  they  incline,  and  whither  she  leads  they 
follow  her. 

What  do  you  mean,  Socrates? 

I  will  teli  you,  he  said.  The  lovers  of  knowledge 
are  conscious  that  their  souls  when  philosophy  receives 
them,  are  simply  fastened  and  glued  to  their  bodies: 
the  soul  is  only  able  to  view  existence  through  the  bars 
of  a  prison,  and  not  in  her  own  nature ;  she  is  wallow¬ 
ing  in  the  mire  of  all  ignorance;  and  philosophy,  see¬ 
ing  the  terrible  nature  of  her  confinement,  and  that 


PHAEDO 


223 


the  captive  through  desire  is  led  to  conspire  in  her 
own  captivity  (for  the  lovers  of  knowledge  are  aware 
that  this  was  the  original  state  of  the  soul,  and  that 
when  she  was  in  this  state  philosophy  received  and 
gently  counselled  her,  and  wanted  to  release  her, 
pointing  out  to  her  that  the  eye  is  full  of  deceit,  and 
also  the  ear  and  the  other  senses,  and  persuading  her 
to  retire  from  them  in  all  but  the  necessary  use  of 
them,  and  to  be  gathered  up  and  collected  into  herself, 
and  to  trust  only  to  herself  and  her  own  intuitions  of 
absolute  existence,  and  mistrust  that  which  comes  to 
her  through  others  and  is  subject  to  vicissitude)  — 
philosophy  shows  her  that  this  is  visible  and  tangible, 
but  that  what  she  sees  in  her  own  nature  is  intellec¬ 
tual  and  invisible.  And  the  soul  of  the  true  philoso¬ 
pher  thinks  that  she  ought  not  to  resist  this  deliver¬ 
ance,  and  therefore  abstains  from  pleasures  and  de¬ 
sires  and  pains  and  fears,  as  far  as  she  is  able;  reflect¬ 
ing  that  when  a  man  has  great  joys  or  sorrows  or 
fears  or  desires,  he  suffers  from  them,  not  the  sort  of 
evil  which  might  be  anticipated  —  as  for  example,  the 
loss  of  his  health  or  property  which  he  has  sacrificed 
to  his  lusts  —  but  he  has  suffered  an  evil  greater  far, 
which  is  the  greatest  and  worst  of  all  evils,  and  one 
of  which  he  never  thinks. 

And  what  is  that,  Socrates?  said  Cebes. 

Why  this:  When  the  feeling  of  pleasure  or  pain 
in  the  soul  is  most  intense,  all  of  us  naturally  suppose 
that  the  object  of  this  intense  feeling  is  then  plainest 
and  truest:  but  this  is  not  the  case. 

Very  true. 

And  this  is  the  state  in  which  the  soul  is  most  en¬ 
thralled  by  the  body. 

How  is  that? 

Why,  because  each  pleasure  and  pain  is  a  sort  of 
nail  which  nails  and  rivets  the  soul  to  the  body,  and 


224 


PHAEDO 


engrosses  her  and  makes  her  believe  that  to  be  true 
which  the  body  affirms  to  be  true;  and  from  agreeing 
with  the  body  and  having  the  same  delights  she  is 
obliged  to  have  the  same  habits  and  ways,  and  is  not 
likely  ever  to  be  pure  at  her  departure  to  the  world 
below,  hut  is  always  saturated  with  the  body ;  so  that 
she  soon  sinks  into  another  body  and  there  germinates 
and  grows,  and  has  therefore  no  part  in  the  com¬ 
munion  of  the  divine  and  pure  and  simple. 

That  is  most  true,  Socrates,  answered  Cebes. 

And  this,  Cebes,  is  the  reason  why  the  true  lovers 
of  knowledge  are  temperate  and  brave ,  and  not  f 01 
the  reason  which  the  world  gives. 

Certainly  not. 

Certainly  not!  For  not  in  that  way  does  the  soul 
of  a  philosopher  reason;  she  will  not  ask  philosophy 
to  release  her  in  order  that  when  released  she  may 
deliver  herself  up  again  to  the  thraldom  of  pleasures 
and  pains,  doing  a  work  only  to  be  undone  again, 
weaving  instead  of  unweaving  her  Penelope  s  web. 
But  she  will  make  herself  a  calm  of  passion,  and  fol¬ 
low  reason,  and  dwell  in  her,  beholding  the  true  and 
divine  (which  is  not  matter  of  opinion),  and  thence 
derive  nourishment.  Thus  she  seeks  to  live  while  s  e 
lives,  and  after  death  she  hopes  to  go  to  her  own  kin¬ 
dred  and  to  he  freed  from  human  ills.  Never  fear, 
Simmias  and  Cebes,  that  a  soul  which  has  been  thus 
nurtured  and  has  had  these  pursuits,  will  at  her  depar¬ 
ture  from  the  body  he  scattered  and  blown  away  by 
the  winds  and  be  nowhere  and  nothing. 

When  Socrates  had  done  speaking,  for  a  consider¬ 
able  time  there  was  silence;  he  himself  and  most  o 
us  appeared  to  be  meditating  on  what  had  been  said ; 
only  Cebes  and  Simmias  spoke  a  few  words  to  one 
another.  And  Socrates  observing  this  asked  them 
what  they  thought  of  the  argument,  and  whether  there 


PHAEDO 


225 


was  anything  wanting?  For,  said  he,  much  is  still 
open  to  suspicion  and  attack,  if  any  one  were  dis¬ 
posed  to  sift  the  matter  thoroughly.  If  you  are  talk¬ 
ing  of  something  else  I  would  rather  not  interrupt 
you,  but  if  you  are  still  doubtful  about  the  argument 
do  not  hesitate  to  say  exactly  what  you  think,  and  let 
us  have  anything  better  which  you  can  suggest  ;  and 
if  I  am  likely  to  be  of  any  use,  allow  me  to  help  you. 

Simmias  said:  I  must  confess,  Socrates,  that  doubts  jfc 
did  arise  in  our  minds,  and  each  of  us  was  urging  and  !  v 
inciting  the  other  to  put  the  question  which  we  wanted 
to  have  answered  and  which  neither  of  us  liked  to  ask, 
fearing  that  our  importunity  might  be  troublesome 
under  present  circumstances.  .. _ _ 

Socrates  smiled,  and  said :  O  Simmias,  how  strange 
that  is;  I  am  not  very  likely  to  persuade  other  men 
that  I  do  not  regard  my  present  situation  as  a  mis¬ 
fortune,  if  I  am  unable  to  persuade  you,  and  you  will 
keep  fancying  that  I  am  at  all  more  troubled  now 
than  at  any  other  time.  Will  you  not  allow  that  I 
have  as  much  of  the  spirit  of  prophecy  in  me  as  the 
swans?  For  they,  when  they  perceive  "that  they  must 
die,  having  sung  all  their  life  long,  do  then  sing  more 
than  ever,  rejoicing  in  the  thought  that  they  are  about 
to  go  away  to  the  god  whose  ministers  they  are.  But 
men,  because  they  are  themselves  afraid  of  death,  slan¬ 
derously  affirm  of  the  swans  that  they  sing  a  lament 
at  the  last,  not  considering  that  no  bird  sings  when 
cold,  or  hungry,  or  in  pain,  not  even  the  nightingale, 
nor  the  swallow,  nor  yet  the  hoopoe;  which  are  said 
indeed  to  tune  a  lay  of  sorrow,  although  I  do  not 
believe  this  to  be  true  of  them  any  more  than  of  the 
swans.  But  because  they  are  sacred  to  Apollo,  and 
have  the  gift  of  prophecy,  and  anticipate  the  good 
things  of  another  world,  therefore  they  sing  and  re¬ 
joice  in  that  day  more  than  ever  they  did  before.  And 


226 


PHAEDO 


I  too,  believing  myself  to  be  the  consecrated  servant 
of  the  same  God,  and  the  fellow-servant  of  the  swans, 
and  thinking  that  I  have  received  from  my  master 
gifts  of  prophecy  which  are  not  inferior  to  theirs, 
would  not  go  out  of  life  less  merrily  than  the  swans. 
Cease  to  mind  then  about  this,  but  speak  and  ask  any¬ 
thing  which  you  like,  while  the  eleven  magistrates  of 

Athens  allow.  . 

Well,  Socrates,  said  STmmias,  then  I  will  tell  you 
my  difficulty,  and  Cebes  will  tell  you  his.  For  I  dare 
say  that  you,  Socrates,  feel  as  I  do,  how  very  hard  or 
almost  impossible  is  the  attainment  of  any  certainty 
about  questions  such  as  these  in  the  present  life.  And 
yet  I  should  deem  him  a  coward  who  did  not  prove 
what  is  said  about  them  to  the  uttermost,  or  whose 
heart  failed  him  before  he  had  examined  them  on 
every  side.  For  he  should  persevere  until  he  has  at¬ 
tained  one  of  two  things :  either  he  should  discover  or 
learn  the  truth  about  them ;  or,  if  this  is  impossible,  I 
would  have  him  take  the  best  and  most  irrefragable  of 
human  notions,  and  let  this  be  the  raft  upon  which  he 
sails  through  life  —  not  without  risk,  as  X  admit,  if  he 
can  not  find  some  word  of  God  which  will  more  surely 
and  safely  carry  him.  And  now,  as  you  bid  me,  I  will 
venture  to  question  you,  as  X  should  not  like  to  re¬ 
proach  myself  hereafter  with  not  having  said  at  the 
time  what  I  think.  For  when  I  consider  the  matter, 
either  alone  or  with  Cebes,  the  argument  does  certainly 
appear  to  me,  Socrates,  to  be  not  sufficient. 

Socrates  answered:  I  dare  say,  my  friend,  that  you 
may  be  right,  but  I  should  like  to  know  in  what  re¬ 
spect  the  argument  is  not  sufficient. 

In  this  respect,  replied  Simmias:  might  not  a 

person  use  the  same  argument  about  harmony  and  the 
{  lyre  —  might  he  not  say  that  harmony  is  a  thing  in¬ 
visible,  incorporeal,  fair,  divine,  abiding  in  the  lyre 


PHAEDO 


227 


which  is  harmonized,  but  that  the  lyre  and  the  strings 
are  matter  and  material,  composite,  earthy,  and  akin 
to  mortality?  And  when  some  one  breaks  the  lyre,  or 
cuts  and  rends  the  strings,  then  he  who  takes  this  view 
would  argue  as  you  do,  and  on  the  same  analogy,  that 
the  harmony  survives  and  has  not  perished;  for  you 
can  not  imagine,  as  he  would  say,  that  the  lyre  without 
the  strings,  and  the  broken  strings  themselves  remain, 
and  yet  that  the  harmony,  which  is  of  heavenly  and 
immortal  nature  and  kindred,  has  perished  —  and 
perished  too  before  the  mortal.  That  harmony,  he 
would  say,  certainly  exists  somewhere,  and  the  wood 
and  strings  will  decay  before  that  decays.  For  I  sus¬ 
pect,  Socrates,  that  the  notion  of  the  soul  wrhich  we 
are  all  of  us  inclined  to  entertain,  would  also  be  yours, 
and  that  you  too  would  conceive  the  body  to  be  strung 
up,  and  held  together,  by  the  elements  of  hot  and  cold, 
wet  and  dry,  and  the  like,  and  that  the  soul  is  the  har¬ 
mony  or  due  proportionate  admixture  of  them.  And, 
if  this  is  true,  the  inference  clearly  is,  that  when  the 
strings  of  the  body  are  unduly  loosened  or  overstrained 
through  disorder  or  other  injury,  then  the  soul,  though 
most  divine,  like  other  harmonies  of  music  or  of  works 
of  art,  of  course  perishes  at  once ;  although  the  material 
remains  of  the  body  may  last  for  a  considerable  time, 
until  they  are  either  decayed  or  burned.  Now  if  any 
one  maintained  that  the  soul,  being  the  harmony  of  the 
elements  of  the  body,  first  perishes  in  that  which  is 
called  death,  how  shall  we  answer  him? 

Socrates  looked  round  at  us  as  his  manner  was,  and 
said  with  a  smile :  Simmias  has  reason  on  his  side ;  and 
why  does  not  some  one  of  you  who  is  abler  than  myself 
answer  him?  for  there  is  force  in  his  attack  upon  me. 
But  perhaps,  before  we  answer  him,  we  had  better 
also  hear  what  Cebes  has  to  say  against  the  argument 
—  this  will  give  us  time  for  reflection,  and  when  both 


228 


PHAEDO 


of  them  have  spoken,  we  may  either  assent  to  them, 
if  their  words  appear  to  be  in  consonance  with  the 
truth,  or  if  not,  we  may  take  up  the  other  side,  and 
argue  with  them.  Please  to  tell  me  then,  Cebes,  he 
said,  what  was  the  difficulty  which  troubled  you? 

Cebes  said:  I  will  tell  you.  My  feeling  is  that  the 
argument  is  still  in  the  same  position,  and  open  to  the 
same  objections  which  were  urged  before;  for  I  am 
ready  to  admit  that  the  existence  of  the  soul  before 
entering  into  the  bodily  form  has  been  very  ingeni¬ 
ously,  and,  as  I  may  be  allowed  to  say,  quite  suf¬ 
ficiently  proven;  but  the  existence  of  the  soul  after 
death  is  still,  in  my  judgment,  unproven.  Now  my 
objection  is  not  the  same  as  that  of  Simmias;  for  I  am 
not  disposed  to  deny  that  the  soul  is  stronger  and  more 
lasting  than  the  body,  being  of  opinion  that  in  all  such 
respects  the  soul  very  far  excels  the  body.  Well  then, 
says  the  argument  to  me,  why  do  you  remain  uncon¬ 
vinced? —  When  you  see  that  the  weaker  is  still  in 
existence  after  the  man  is  dead,  will  you  not  admit  that 
the  more  lasting  must  also  survive  during  the  same 
period  of  time?  Now  I,  like  Simmias,  must  employ  a 
figure;  and  I  shall  ask  you  to  consider  whether  the 
figure  is  to  the  point.  The  parallel  which  I  will  sup¬ 
pose  is  that  of  an  old  weaver,  who  dies,  and  after  his 
death  somebody  says :  —  He  is  not  dead,  he  must  be 
alive ;  and  he  appeals  to  the  coat  which  he  himself  wove 
and  wore,  and  which  is  still  whole  and  undecayed.  And 
then  he  proceeds  to  ask  of  some  one  who  is  incredulous, 
whether  a  man  lasts  longer,  or  the  coat  which  is  in  use 
and  wear;  and  when  he  is  answered  that  a  man  lasts 
far  longer,  thinks  that  he  has  thus  certainly  demon¬ 
strated  the  survival  of  the  man,  who  is  the  more  last¬ 
ing,  because  the  less  lasting  remains.  But  that, 
Simmias,  as  I  would  beg  you  to  observe,  is  not  the 
truth ;  every  one  sees  that  he  who  talks  thus  is  talking 


PI1AEDO 


229 


nonsense.  For  the  truth  is,  that  this  weaver,  having 
worn  and  woven  many  such  coats,  though  he  outlived 
several  of  them,  was  himself  outlived  by  the  last;  but 
this  is  surely  very  far  from  proving  that  a  man  is 
slighter  and  weaker  than  a  coat.  Now  the  relation 
of  the  body  to  the  soul  may  be  expressed  in  a  similar 
figure;  for  you  may  say  with  reason  that  the  soul  is 
lasting,  and  the  body  weak  and  shortlived  in  com¬ 
parison.  And  every  soul  may  be  said  to  wear  out  ; 
many  bodies,  especially  in  the  course  of  a  long  life.  ) 
For  if  while  the  man  is  alive  the  body  deliquesces  and 
decays,  and  yet  the  soul  always  weaves  her  garment 
anew  and  repairs  the  waste,  then  of  course,  when  the 
soul  perishes,  she  must  have  on  her  last  garment,  and 
this  only  will  survive  her;  but  then  again,  when  the 
soul  is  dead,  the  body  will  at  last  show  its  native  weak¬ 
ness,  and  soon  pass  into  decay.  And  therefore  this  is 
an  argument  on  which  I  would  rather  not  rely  as 
proving  that  the  soul  exists  after  death.  For  suppose 
that  we  grant  even  more  than  you  affirm  as  within  the 
range  of  possibility,  and  besides  acknowledging  that 
the  soul  existed  before  birth,  admit  also  that  after 
death  the  souls  of  some  are  existing  still,  and  will  exist, 
and  will  be  born  and  die  again  and  again,  and  that 
there  is  a  natural  strength  in  the  soul  which  will  hold 
out  and  be  born  many  times  —  for  all  this,  we  may  be 
still  inclined  to  think  that  she  will  weary  in  the  labors  / 
of  successive  births,  and  may  at  last  succumb  in  one  of 
her  deaths  and  utterly  perish ;  and  this  death  and  dis¬ 
solution  of  the  body  which  brings  destruction  to  the 
soul  may  be  unknown  to  any  of  us,  for  no  one  of  us 
can  have  had  any  experience  of  it :  and  if  this  be  true, 
then  I  say  that  he  who  is  confident  in  death  has  but  a 
foolish  confidence,  unless  he  is  able  to  prove  that  the 
soul  is  altogether  immortal  and  imperishable.  But  if 
he  is  'not  able  to  prove  this,  he  who  is  about  to  die  will 


230 


PHAEDO 


always  have  reason  to  fear  that  when  the  body  is  dis¬ 
united,  the  soul  also  may  utterly  perish. 

All  of  us,  as  we  afterwards  remarked  to  one  another, 
had  an  unpleasant  feeling  at  hearing  them  say  this. 
When  we  had  been  so  firmly  convinced  before,  now  to 
have  our  faith  shaken  seemed  to  introduce  a  confusion 
and  uncertainty,  not  only  into  the  previous  argument, 
but  into  any  future  one;  either  we  were  not  good 
judges,  or  there  were  no  real  grounds  of  belief. 

Ech.  There  I  feel  with  you  —  indeed  I  do,  Phaedo, 
and  when  you  were  speaking,  I  was  beginning  to  ask 
myself  the  same  question :  What  argument  can  I  ever 
trust  again  ?  For  what  could  be  more  convincing  than 
the  argument  of  Socrates,  which  has  now  fallen  into 
discredit?  That  the  soul  is  a  harmony  is  a  doctrine 
which  has  always  had  a  wonderful  attraction  for  me, 
and,  when  mentioned,  came  back  to  me  at  once,  as  my 
own  original  conviction.  And  now  I  must  begin  again 
and  find  another  argument  which  will  assure  me  that 
when  the  man  is  dead  the  soul  dies  not  with  him.  Tell 
me,  I  beg,  how  did  Socrates  proceed?  Did  he  appear 
to  share  the  unpleasant  feeling  which  you  mention?  or 
did  he  receive  the  interruption  calmly  and  give  a  suf¬ 
ficient  answer?  Tell  us,  as  exactly  as  you  can,  what 
passed. 

Phaed.  Often,  Echecrates,  as  I  have  admired 
Socrates,  I  never  admired  him  more  than  at  that 
moment.  That  he  should  be  able  to  answer  was  noth¬ 
ing,  but  what  astonished  me  was,  first,  the  gentle  and 
pleasant  and  approving  manner  in  which  he  regarded 
the  words  of  the  young  men,  and  then  his  quick  sense 
of  the  wound  which  had  been  inflicted  by  the  argu¬ 
ment,  and  his  ready  application  of  the  healing  art. 
He  might  be  compared  to  a  general  rallying  his  de¬ 
feated  and  broken  army,  urging  them  to  follow  him 
and  return  to  the  field  of  argument. 


Y 


PHAEDO 


231 


Ech .  How  was  that? 

Phaed .  You  shall  hear,  for  I  was  close  to  him  on 
his  right  hand,  seated  on  a  sort  of  stool,  and  he  on  a 
couch  which  was  a  good  deal  higher.  Now  he  had  a 
way  of  playing  with  my  hair,  and  then  he  smoothed 
my  head,  and  pressed  the  hair  upon  my  neck,  and 
said:  —  To-morrow,  Phaedo,  I  suppose  that  these  fair 
locks  of  yours  will  be  severed. 

Yes,  Socrates,  I  suppose  that  they  will,  I  replied. 

Not  so,  if  you  will  take  my  advice. 

What  shall  I  do  with  them?  I  said. 

To-day,  he  replied,  and  not  to-morrow,  if  this  argu¬ 
ment  dies  and  can  not  be  brought  to  life  again  by  us, 
you  and  I  will  both  shave  our  locks :  and  if  I  were  you, 
and  could  not  maintain  my  ground  against  Simmias 
and  Cebes,  I  would  myself  take  an  oath,  like  the 
Argives,  not  to  wear  hair  any  more  until  I  had  renewed 
the  conflict  and  defeated  them. 

Yes,  I  said;  but  Heracles  himself  is  said  not  to  be  a 
match  for  two. 

Summon  me  then,  he  said,  and  I  will  be  your  lolaus 
until  the  sun  goes  down. 

I  summon  you  rather,  I  said,  not  as  Heracles  sum¬ 
moning  lolaus,  but  as  lolaus  might  summon  Heracles. 

That  will  be  all  the  same,  he  said.  But  first  let  us 
take  care  that  we  avoid  a  danger. 

And  what  is  that?  I  said. 

The  danger  of  becoming  misologists,  he  replied, 
which  is  one  of  the  very  worst  things  that  can  happen 
to  us.  For  as  there  are  misanthropists  or  haters  of 
men,  there  are  also  misologists  or  haters  of  ideas,  and 
both  spring  from  the  same  cause,  which  is  ignorance  of 
the  world.  Misanthropy  arises  from  the  too  great  con¬ 
fidence  of  inexperience ;  —  you  trust  a  man  and  think 
him  altogether  true  and  good  and  faithful,  and  then 
in  a  little  while  he  turns  out  to  be  false  and  knavish; 


232 


PHAEDO 


and  then  another  and  another,  and  when  this  has  hap¬ 
pened  several  times  to  a  man,  especially  within  the 
circle  of  his  own  most  trusted  friends,  as  he  deems 
them,  and  he  has  often  quarrelled  with  them,  he  at  last 
hates  all  men,  and  believes  that  no  one  has  any  good 
in  him  at  all.  I  dare  say  that  you  must  have  observed 
this. 

Yes,  I  said. 

And  is  not  this  discreditable?  The  reason  is,  that  a 
man,  having  to  deal  with  other  men,  has  no  knowledge 
of  them;  for  if  he  had  knowledge,  he  would  have 
known  the  true  state  of  the  case,  that  few  are  the  good 
and  few  the  evil,  and  that  the  great  majority  are  in 
the  interval  between  them. 

How  do  you  mean  ?  I  said. 

I  mean,  he  replied,  as  you  might  say  of  the  very 
large  and  very  small  —  that  nothing  is  more  uncom¬ 
mon  than  a  very  large  or  very  small  man;  and  this 
applies  generally  to  all  extremes,  wdiether  of  great  and 
small,  or  swift  and  slow,  or  fair  and  foul,  or  black  and 
white :  and  whether  the  instances  you  select  be  men  or 
dogs  or  anything  else,  few  are  the  extremes,  but  many 
are  in  the  mean  between  them.  Did  you  never  observe 
this? 

Yes,  I  said,  I  have. 

And  do  you  not  imagine,  he  said,  that  if  there  were 
a  competition  of  evil,  the  first  in  evil  would  be  found 
to  be  very  few? 

Yes,  that  is  very  likely,  I  said. 

Yes,  that  is  very  likely,  he  replied;  not  that  in  this 
respect  arguments  are  like  men  —  there  I  was  led  on 
by  you  to  say  more  than  I  had  intended ;  but  the  point 
of  comparison  was,  that  when  a  simple  man  who  has 
no  skill  in  dialectics  believes  an  argument  to  be  true 
which  he  afterwards  imagines  to  be  false,  whether 
really  false  or  not,  and  then  another  and  another,  he 


PHAEDO 


233 


has  no  longer  any  faith  left,  and  great  disputers,  as 
you  know,  come  to  think  at  last  that  they  have  grown 
to  be  the  wisest  of  mankind;  for  they  alone  perceive 
the  utter  unsoundness  and  instability  of  all  arguments, 
or  indeed,  of  all  things,  which,  like  the  currents  in 
the  Euripus,  are  going  up  and  down  in  never-ceasing 
ebb  and  flow. 

That  is  quite  true,  I  said. 

Yes,  Phaedo,  he  replied,  and  very  melancholy  too, 
if  there  be  such  a  thing  as  truth  or  certainty  or  power 
of  knowing  at  all,  that  a  man  should  have  lighted  upon 
some  argument  or  other  which  at  first  seemed  true  and 
then  turned  out  to  be  false,  and  instead  of  blaming 
himself  and  his  own  want  of  wit,  because  he  is  an¬ 
noyed,  should  at  last  be  too  glad  to  transfer  the  blame 
from  himself  to  arguments  in  general;  and  for  ever 
afterwards  should  hate  and  revile  them,  and  lose  the 
truth  and  knowledge  of  existence. 

Yes,  indeed,  I  said;  that  is  very  melancholy. 

Let  us  then,  in  the  first  place,  he  said,  be  careful  of 
admitting  into  our  souls  the  notion  that  there  is  no 
truth  or  health  or  soundness  in  any  arguments  at  all; 
but  let  us  rather  say  that  there  is  as  yet  no  health  in  us, 
and  that  we  must  quit  ourselves  like  men  and  do  our 
best  to  gain  health  —  you  and  all  other  men  with  a 
view  to  the  whole  of  your  future  life,  and  I  myself 
with  a  view  to  death.  For  at  this  moment  I  am  sen¬ 
sible  that  I  have  not  the  temper  of  a  philosopher ;  like 
the  vulgar,  I  am  only  a  partisan.  For  the  partisan, 
when  he  is  engaged  in  a  dispute,  cares  nothing  about 
the  rights  of  the  question,  but  is  anxious  only  to  con¬ 
vince  his  hearers  of  his  own  assertions.  And  the  dif¬ 
ference  between  him  and  me  at  the  present  moment  is 
only  this  —  that  whereas  he  seeks  to  convince  his 
hearers  that  what  he  say  is  true,  I  am  rather  seeking 
to  convince  myself ;  to  convince  my  hearers  is  a  second- 


.  234 


PHAEDO 


ary  matter  with  me.  And  do  but  see  how  much  I  gain 
by  this.  For  if  what  I  say  is  true,  then  I  do  well  to  be 
persuaded  of  the  truth;  but  if  there  be  nothing  after 
death,  still,  during  the  short  time  that  remains,  I  shall 
save  my  friends  from  lamentations,  and  my  ignorance 
will  not  last,  and  therefore  no  harm  will  be  done.  This 
is  the  state  of  mind,  Simmias  and  Cebes,  in  which  I 
approach  the  argument.  And  I  would  ask  you  to  be 
thinking  of  the  truth  and  not  of  Socrates :  agree  with 
me,  if  I  seem  to  you  to  be  speaking  the  truth ;  or  if  not, 
withstand  me  might  and  main,  that  I  may  not  deceive 
you  as  well  as  myself  in  my  enthusiasm,  and  like  the 
bee,  leave  my  sting  in  you  before  I  die. 

And  now  let  us  proceed,  he  said.  And  first  of  all 
let  me  be  sure  that  I  have  in  my  mind  wThat  you  were 
saying.  Simmias,  if  I  remember  rightly,  has  fears 
and  misgivings  whether  the  soul,  being  in  the  form  of 
harmony,  although  a  fairer  and  diviner  thing  than  the 
body,  may  not  perish  first.  On  the  other  hand,  Cebes 
appeared  to  grant  that  the  soul  was  more  lasting  than 
the  body,  but  he  said  that  no  one  could  know  whether 
the  soul,  after  having  worn  out  many  bodies,  might  not 
perish  herself  and  leave  her  last  body  behind  her ;  and 
that  this  is  death,  which  is  the  destruction  not  of  the 
body  but  of  the  soul,  for  in  the  body  the  work  of 
destruction  is  ever  going  on.  Are  not  these,  Simmias 
and  Cebes,  the  points  which  we  have  to  consider? 

They  both  agreed  to  this  statement  of  them. 

He  proceeded:  And  did  you  deny  the  force  of 
the  whole  preceding  argument,  or  of  a  part  only? 

Of  a  part  only,  they  replied. 

And  what  did  you  think,  he  said,  of  that  part  of  the 
argument  in  which  we  said  that  knowledge  was  recol¬ 
lection  only,  and  inferred  from  this  that  the  soul  must 
have  previously  existed  somewhere  else  before  she  was 
enclosed  in  the  body?  Cebes  said  that  he  had  been 


PHAEDO 


235 


wonderfully  impressed  by  that  part  of  the  argument, 
and  that  his  conviction  remained  unshaken.  Simmias 
agreed,  and  added  that  he  himself  could  hardly  im¬ 
agine  the  possibility  of  his  ever  thinking  differently 
about  that. 

But,  rejoined  Socrates,  you  will  have  to  think  dif¬ 
ferently,  my  Theban  friend,  if  you  still  maintain  that 
harmony  is  a  compound,  and  that  the  soul  is  a  harmony 
which  is  made  out  of  strings  set  in  the  frame  of  the 
body;  for  you  will  surely  never  allow  yourself  to  say 
that  a  harmony  is  prior  to  the  elements  which  compose 
the  harmony. 

No,  Socrates,  that  is  impossible. 

But  do  you  not  see  that  you  are  saying  this  when 
you  say  that  the  soul  existed  before  she  took  the  form 
and  body  of  man,  and  was  made  up  of  elements  which 
as  yet  had  no  existence?  For  harmony  is  not  a  sort  of 
thing  like  the  soul,  as  you  suppose ;  but  first  the  lyre, 
and  the  strings,  and  the  sounds  exist  in  a  state  of  dis¬ 
cord,  and  then  harmony  is  made  last  of  all,  and 
perishes  first.  And  how  can  such  a  notion  of  the  soul 
as  this  agree  with  the  other? 

Not  at  all,  replied  Simmias. 

And  yet,  he  said,  there  surely  ought  to  be  harmony 
when  harmony  is  the  theme  of  discourse. 

There  ought,  replied  Simmias. 

But  there  is  no  harmon}^,  he  said,  in  the  two  proposi¬ 
tions  .  that  knowledge  is  recollection,  and  that  the 
soul  is  a  harmony.  Which  of  them  then  will  you 
retain  ? 

I  think,  he  replied,  that  I  have  a  much  stronger 
faith,  Socrates,  in  the  first  of  the  two,  which  has  been 
fully  demonstrated  to  me,  than  in  the  latter,  which 
has  not  been  demonstrated  at  all,  but  rests  only  on 
probable  and  plausible  grounds;  and  I  know  too  well  * 
that  these  arguments  from  probabilities  are  impostors, 


236 


PHAEDO 


and  unless  great  caution  is  observed  in  the  use  of  them, 
they  are  apt  to  be  deceptive  —  in  geometry,  and  in 
other  things  too.  But  the  doctrine  of  knowledge  and 
recollection  has  been  proven  to  me  on  trustworthy 
grounds;  and  the  proof  was  that  the  soul  must 
have  existed  before  she  came  into  the  body,  because 
to  her  belongs  the  essence  of  which  the  very  name  im¬ 
plies  existence.  Having,  as  I  am  convinced,  rightly 
accepted  this  conclusion,  and  on  sufficient  grounds,  I 
must,  as  I  suppose,  cease  to  argue  or  allow  others  to 
argue  that  the  soul  is  a  harmony. 

Let  me  put  the  matter,  Simmias,  he  said,  in  another 
point  of  view :  Do  you  imagine  that  a  harmony  or  any 
other  composition  can  be  in  a  state  other  than  that  of 
the  elements,  out  of  which  it  is  compounded? 

Certainly  not. 

Or  do  or  suffer  anything  other  than  they  do  or 
suffer? 

He  agreed. 

Then  a  harmony  does  not  lead  the  parts  or  elements 
which  make  up  the  harmony,  but  only  follows 
them. 

He  assented. 

For  harmony  can  not  possibly  have  any  motion,  or 
sound,  or  other  quality  which  is  opposed  to  the  parts. 

That  would  be  impossible,  he  replied. 

And  does  not  every  harmony  depend  upon  the  man¬ 
ner  in  which  the  elements  are  harmonized? 

I  do  not  understand  you,  he  said. 

I  mean  to  say  that  a  harmony  admits  of  degrees,  and 
is  more  of  a  harmony,  and  more  completely  a  harmony, 
when  more  completely  harmonized,  if  that  be  possible ; 
and  less  of  a  harmony,  and  less  completely  a  harmony, 
when  less  harmonized. 

True. 

But  does  the  soul  admit  of  degrees?  or  is  one  soul 


PHAEDO 


237 


in  the  very  least  degree  more  or  less,  or  more  or  less 
completely,  a  soul  than  another? 

Not  in  the  least. 

Yet  surely  one  soul  is  said  to  have  intelligence  and 
virtue,  and  to  be  good,  and  another  soul  is  said  to  have 

folly  and  vice,  and  to  be  an  evil  soul :  and  this  is  said 
truly? 

Yes,  truly. 

But  what  will  those  who  maintain  the  soul  to  be  a 
harmony  say  of  this  presence  of  virtue  and  vice  in  the 
soul?  —  will  they  say  that  here  is  another  harmony, 
and  another  discord,  and  that  the  virtuous  soul  is 
harmonized,  and  herself  being  harmony  has  another 
harmony  within  her,  and  that  the  vicious  soul  is  inhar- 
monical  and  has  no  harmony  within  her? 

I  can  not  say,  replied  Simmias;  but  I  suppose  that 
something  of  that  kind  would  be  asserted  by  those  who 
take  this  view. 

And  the  admission  is  already  made  that  no  soul  is 
more  a  soul  than  another;  and  this  is  equivalent  to 
admitting  that  harmony  is  not  more  or  less  harmony, 
or  more  or  less  completely  a  harmony? 

Quite  true. 

And  that  which  is  not  more  or  less  a  harmony  is  not 
more  or  less  harmonized  ? 

True. 

And  that  which  is  not  more  or  less  harmonized  can 
not  have  more  or  less  of  harmony,  but  only  an  equal 
harmony? 

Yes,  an  equal  harmony. 

Then  one  soul  not  being  more  or  less  absolutely  a 
soul  than  another,  is  not  more  or  less  harmonized? 

Exactly. 

And  therefore  has  neither  more  nor  less  of  harmon}^ 
or  of  discord  ? 

She  has  not. 


238 


PHAEDO 


And  having  neither  more  nor  less  of  harmony  or  of 
discord,  one  soul  has  no  more  vice  or  virtue  than 
another,  if  vice  be  discord  and  virtue  harmony? 

Not  at  all  more. 

Or  speaking  more  correctly,  Simmias,  the  soul,  if 
she  is  a  harmony,  will  never  have  any  vice;  because  a 
harmony,  being  absolutely  a  harmony,  has  no  part  in 
the  inharmonical. 

No. 

And  therefore  a  soul  which  is  absolutely  a  soul  has 
no  vice? 

How  can  she  have,  consistently  with  the  preceding 
argument  ? 

Then,  according  to  this,  if  the  souls  of  all  animals 
are  equally  and  absolutely  souls,  they  will  be  equally 
good? 

O  -  ,  , 

I  agree  with  you,  Socrates,  he  said. 

And  can  all  this  be  true,  think  you?  he  said;  and 
are  all  these  consequences  admissible  —  which  never¬ 
theless  seem  to  follow  from  the  assumption  that  the 
soul  is  a  harmony? 

Certainly  not,  he  said. 

Once  more,  he  said,  what  ruling  principle  is  there 
of  human  things  other  than  the  soul,  and  especially 
the  wise  soul?  Do  you  know  of  any  ? 

Indeed,  I  do  not. 

And  is  the  soul  in  agreement  with  the  affections  of 
the  body?  or  is  she  at  variance  with  them?  For  ex¬ 
ample,  when  the  body  is  hot  and  thirsty,  does  not  the 
soul  incline  us  against  drinking?  and  when  the  body  j 
is  hungry,  against  eating?  And  this  is  only  one  in¬ 
stance  out  of  ten  thousand  of  the  opposition  of  the 
soul  to  the  things  of  the  body.  I 

Very  true. 

But  wre  have  already  acknowledged  that  the  soul, 
being  a  harmony,  can  never  utter  a  note  at  variance 


PHAEDO 


239 


with  the  tensions  and  relaxations  and  vibrations  and 
other  affections  of  the  strings  out  of  which  she  is  com¬ 
posed;  she  can  only  follow,  she  can  not  lead  them? 

Yes,  he  said,  we  acknowledged  that,  certainly. 

And  yet  do  we  not  now  discover  the  soul  to  be  doing 
the  exact  opposite  —  leading  the  elements  of  which 
she  is  believed  to  be  composed;  almost  always  op¬ 
posing  and  coercing  them  in  all  sorts  of  ways  through¬ 
out  life,  sometimes  more  violently  with  the  pains  of 
medicine  and  gymnastic ;  then  again  more  gently ;  — 
threatening  and  also  reprimanding  the  desires,  pas¬ 
sions,  fears,  as  if  talking  to  a  thing  which  is  not  herself, 
as  Homer  in  the  Odyssee  represents  Odysseus  doing 
in  the  words :  — 

“  He  beat  his  breast,  and  thus  reproached  his  heart: 

Endure,  my  heart;  far  worse  hast  thou  endured!  ” 

Do  vou  think  that  Homer  could  have  written  this 
%/ 

under  the  idea  that  the  soul  is  a  harmony  capable  of 
being  led  by  the  affections  of  the  body,  and  not  rather 
of  a  nature  which  leads  and  masters  them ;  and  herself 
a  far  diviner  thing  than  any  harmony? 

Yes,  Socrates,  I  quite  agree  to  that. 

Then,  my  friend,  we  can  never  be  right  in  saying 
that  the  soul  is  a  harmony,  for  that  would  clearly  con¬ 
tradict  the  divine  Homer  as  well  as  ourselves. 

True,  he  said. 

Thus  much,  said  Socrates,  of  Harmonia,  your 
Theban  goddess,  Cebes,  who  has  not  been  ungracious 
to  us,  I  think;  but  what  shall  I  say  to  the  Theban 
Cadmus,  and  how  shall  I  propitiate  him? 

I  think  that  you  will  discover  a  way  of  propitiating 
him,  said  Cebes;  I  am  sure  that  you  have  answered 
the  argument  about  harmony  in  a  manner  that  I  could 
never  have  expected.  For  when  Simmias  mentioned 
his  objection,  I  quite  imagined  that  no  answer  could  be 


240 


PHAEDO 


given  to  him,  and  therefore  I  was  surprised  at  finding 
that  this  argument  could  not  sustain  the  first  onset  of 
yours,  and  not  impossibly  the  other,  whom  you  call 
Cadmus,  may  share  a  similar  fate. 

Nay,  my  good  friend,  said  Socrates,  let  us  not  boast, 
lest  some  evil  eye  should  put  to  flight  the  word  which 
I  am  about  to  speak.  That,  however,  may  be  left  in 
the  hands  of  those  above;  while  I  draw  near  in 
Homeric  fashion,  and  try  the  mettle  of  your  words. 
Briefly,  the  sum  of  your  objection  is  as  follows:  — 
You  want  to  have  proven  to  you  that  the  soul  is  im¬ 
perishable  and  immortal,  and  you  think  that  the 
philosopher  who  is  confident  in  death  has  but  a  vain 
and  foolish  confidence,  if  he  thinks  that  he  will  fare 
better  than  one  who  has  led  another  sort  of  life,  in  the 
world  below,  unless  he  can  prove  this :  and  you  say  that 
the  demonstration  of  the  strength  and  divinity  of  the 
soul,  and  of  her  existence  prior  to  our  becoming  men, 
does  not  necessarily  imply  her  immortality.  Granting 
that  the  soul  is  longlived,  and  has  known  and  done 
much  in  a  former  state,  still  she  is  not  on  that  account 
immortal;  and  her  entrance  into  the  human  form  may 
be  a  sort  of  disease  which  is  the  beginning  of  dis¬ 
solution,  and  may  at  last,  after  the  toils  of  life  are 
over,  end  in  that  which  is  called  death.  And  whether 
the  soul  enters  into  the  body  once  only  or  many  times, 
that,  as  you  would  say,  makes  no  difference  in  the 
fears  of  individuals.  For  any  man,  who  is  not  devoid 
of  natural  feeling,  has  reason  to  fear,  if  he  has  no 
knowledge  or  proof  of  the  soul’s  immortality.  That 
is  what  I  suppose  you  to  say,  Cebes,  which  I  design¬ 
edly  repeat,  in  order  that  nothing  may  escape  us,  and 
that  you  may,  if  you  wish,  add  or  subtract  anything. 

But,  said  Cebes,  as  far  as  I  see  at  present,  I  have 
nothing  to  add  or  subtract;  you  have  expressed  my 
meaning. 


PHAEDO 


241 


Socrates  paused  awhile,  and  seemed  to  be  absorbed 
in  reflection.  At  length  he  said :  This  is  a  very  serious 
inquiry  which  you  are  raising,  Cebes,  involving  the 
whole  question  of  generation  and  corruption,  about 
which  I  will,  if  you  like,  give  you  my  own  experience ; 
and  you  can  apply  this,  if  you  think  that  anything 
which  I  say  will  avail  towards  the  solution  of  your 
difficulty. 

I  should  very  much  like,  said  Cebes,  to  hear  what 
you  have  to  say. 

Then  I  will  tell  you,  said  Socrates.  When  I  was 
young,  Cebes,  I  had  a  prodigious  desire  to  know  that 
department  of  philosophy  which  is  called  Natural 
Science;  this  appeared  to  me  to  have  lofty  aims,  as 
being  the  science  which  has  to  do  with  the  causes  of 
things,  and  which  teaches  why  a  thing  is,  and  is  created 
and  destroyed;  and  I  was  always  agitating  myself 
with  the  consideration  of  such  questions  as  these:  —  Is 
the  growth  of  animals  the  result  of  some  decay  which 
the  hot  and  cold  principle  contract,  as  some  have  said  ? 
Is  the  blood  the  element  with  which  we  think,  or  the 
air,  or  the  fire  ?  or  perhaps  nothing  of  this  sort  —  but 
the  brain  may  be  the  originating  power  of  the  per¬ 
ceptions  of  hearing  and  sight  and  smell,  and  memory 
and  opinion  may  come  from  them,  and  science  may  be 
based  on  memory  and  opinion  when  no  longer  in 
motion,  but  at  rest.  And  then  I  went  on  to  examine 
the  decay  of  them,  and  then  to  the  things  of  heaven 
and  earth,  and  at  last  I  concluded  that  I  was  wholly 
incapable  of  these  inquiries,  as  I  will  satisfactorily 
prove  to  you.  For  I  was  fascinated  by  them  to  such  a 
degree  that  my  eyes  grew  blind  to  things  that  I  had 
seemed  to  myself,  and  also  to  others,  to  know  quite 
well;  and  I  forgot  what  I  had  before  thought  to  be 
self-evident,  that  the  growth  of  man  is  the  result  of 
eating  and'  drinking;  for  when  by  the  digestion  of 


242 


PHAEDO 


food  flesh  is  added  to  flesh  and  bone  to  bone,  and  when¬ 
ever  there  is  an  aggregation  of  congenial  elements, 
the  lesser  bulk  becomes  larger  and  the  small  man 
greater.  Was  not  that  a  reasonable  notion? 

Yes,  said  Cebes,  I  think  so. 

Well;  but  let  me  tell  you  something  more.  There 
was  a  time  when  I  thought  that  I  understood  the 
meaning  of  greater  and  less  pretty  well ;  and  when  I 
saw  a  great  man  standing  by  a  little  one,  I  fancied 
that  one  was  taller  than  the  other  by  a  head;  or  one 
horse  would  appear  to  be  greater  than  another  horse : 
and  still  more  clearly  did  I  seem  to  perceive  that  ten 
is  two  more  than  eight,  and  that  two  cubits  are  more 
than  one,  because  two  is  twice  one. 

And  what  is  now  your  notion  of  such  matters?  said 

Cebes. 

I  should  be  far  enough  from  imagining,  he  replied, 
that  I  knew  the  cause  of  any  of  them,  indeed  I  should, 
for  I  can  not  satisfy  myself  that  when  one  is  added  to 
one,  the  one  to  which  the  addition  is  made  becomes  two, 
or  that  the  two  units  added  together  make  two  by 
reason  of  the  addition.  For  I  cannot  understand  how, 
when  separated  from  the  other,  each  of  them  was  one 
and  not  two,  and  now,  when  they  are  brought  to¬ 
gether,  the  mere  juxtaposition  of  them  can  be  the 
cause  of  their  becoming  two:  nor  can  I  understand 
how  the  division  of  one  is  the  way  to  make  two; 
for  then  a  different  cause  would  produce  the  same 
effect ,  —  as  in  the  former  instance  the  addition  and 
juxtaposition  of  one  to  one  was  the  cause  of  two,  in 
this  the  separation  and  subtraction  of  one  from  the 
other  would  be  the  cause.  1ST or  am  I  any  longer 
satisfied  that  I  understand  the  reason  why  one  or  any¬ 
thing  else  either  is  generated  or  destroyed  or  is  at  all, 
but  I  have  in  my  mind  some  confused  notion  of  an¬ 
other  method,  and  can  never  admit  this. 


PHAEDO 


243 


Then  I  heard  some  one  who  had  a  book  of 
Anaxagoras,  as  he  said,  out  of  which  he  read  that 
mind  was  the  disposer  and  cause  of  all,  and  I  was 
quite  delighted  at  the  notion  of  this,  which  appeared 
admirable,  and  I  said  to  myself:  If  mind  is  the  dis¬ 
poser,  mind  will  dispose  all  for  the  best,  and  put  each 
particular  in  the  best  place ;  and  I  argued  that  if  any 
one  desired  to  find  out  the  cause  of  the  generation  or 
destruction  or  existence  of  anything,  he  must  find  out 
what  state  of  being  or  suffering  or  doing  was  best  for 
that  thing,  and  therefore  a  man  had  only  to  consider 
the  best  for  himself  and  others,  and  then  he  would  also 
know  the  worse,  for  that  the  same  science  comprised 
both.  And  I  rejoiced  to  think  that  I  had  found  in 
Anaxagoras  a  teacher  of  the  causes  of  existence  such 
as  I  desired,  and  I  imagined  that  he  would  tell  me  first 
whether  the  earth  is  flat  or  round ;  and  then  he  would 
further  explain  the  cause  and  the  necessity  of  this,  and 
would  teach  me  the  nature  of  the  best  and  show  that 
this  was  best ;  and  if  he  said  that  the  earth  was  in  the 
centre,  he  would  explain  that  this  position  was  the 
best,  and  I  should  be  satisfied  if  this  were  shown  to  me, 
and  not  want  any  other  sort  of  cause.  And  I  thought 
that  I  would  then  go  on  and  ask  him  about  the  sun  and 
moon  and  stars,  and  that  he  would  explain  to  me  their 
comparative  swiftness,  and  their  returnings  and 
various  states,  and  how  their  several  affections,  active 
and  passive,  were  all  for  the  best.  For  I  could  not 
imagine  that  when  he  spoke  of  mind  as  the  disposer  of 
them,  he  would  give  any  other  account  of  their  being 
as  they  are,  except  that  this  was  best;  and  I  thought 
that  when  he  had  explained  to  me  in  detail  the  cause 
of  each  and  the  cause  of  all,  he  would  go  on  to  explain 
to  me  what  was  best  for  each  and  what  was  best  for 
all.  I  had  hopes  which  I  would  not  have  sold  for 
much,  and  I  seized  the  books  and  read  them  as  fast  as 


244 


PHAEDO 


I  could  in  my  eagerness  to  know  the  better  and  the 
worse. 

What  hopes  I  had  formed,  and  how  grievously 
was  I  disappointed!  As  I  proceeded,  I  found  my 
philosopher  altogether  forsaking  mind  or  any  other 
principle  of  order,  but  having  recourse  to  air,  and 
ether,  and  water,  and  other  eccentricities.  I  might 
compare  him  to  a  person  who  began  by  maintaining 
generally  that  mind  is  the  cause  of  the  actions  of 
Socrates,  but  who,  when  he  endeavored  to  explain  the 
causes  of  my  several  actions  in  detail,  went  on  to  show 
that  I  sit  here  because  my  body  is  made  up  of  bones 
and  muscles ;  and  the  bones,  as  he  would  say,  are  hard 
and  have  ligaments  which  divide  them,  and  the 
muscles  are  elastic,  and  they  cover  the  bones,  which 
have  also  a  covering  or  environment  of  flesh  and  skin 
which  contains  them;  and  as  the  bones  are  lifted  at 
their  joints  by  the  contraction  or  relaxation  of  the 
muscles,  I  am  able  to  bend  my  limbs,  and  this  is  why 
I  am  sitting  here  in  a  curved  posture ;  —  that  is  what 
he  would  say,  and  he  would  have  a  similar  explanation 
of  my  talking  to  you,  which  he  would  attribute  to 
sound,  and  air,  and  hearing,  and  he  would  assign  ten 
thousand  other  causes  of  the  same  sort,  forgetting  to 
mention  the  true  cause,  which  is,  that  the  Athenians 
have  thought  fit  to  condemn  me,  and  accordingly  I 
have  thought  it  better  and  more  right  to  remain  here 
and  undergo  my  sentence;  for  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  these  muscles  and  bones  of  mine  would  have  gone 
off  to  Megara  or  Boeotia  —  by  the  dog  of  Egypt  they  | 
would,  if  the}^  had  been  guided  only  by  their  own  idea 
of  what  was  best,  and  if  I  had  not  chosen  as  the  better 
and  nobler  part,  instead  of  playing  truant  and  run¬ 
ning  away,  to  undergo  any  punishment  which  the 
state  inflicts.  There  is  surely  a  strange  confusion  of 
causes  and  conditions  in  all  this.  It  may  be  said, 


PHAEDO 


245 


indeed,  that  without  bones  and  muscles  and  the  other 
parts  of  the  body  I  can  not  execute  my  purposes. 
But  to  say  that  I  do  as  I  do  because  of  them,  and  that 
this  is  the  way  in  which  mind  acts,  and  not  from  the 
choice  of  the  best,  is  a  very  careless  and  idle  mode  of 
speaking.  I  wonder  that  they  can  not  distinguish  the 
cause  from  the  condition,  which  the  many,  feeling 
about  in  the  dark,  are  always  mistaking  and  mis¬ 
naming.  And  thus  one  man  makes  a  vortex  all  round 
and  steadies  the  earth  by  the  heaven ;  another  gives  the 
air  as  a  support  to  the  earth,  which  is  a  sort  of  broad 
trough.  Any  power  which  in  disposing  them  as  they 
are  disposes  them  for  the  best  never  enters  into  their 
minds,  nor  do  they  imagine  that  there  is  any  super¬ 
human  strength  in  that;  they  rather  expect  to  find 
another  Atlas  of  the  world  who  is  stronger  and  more 
everlasting  and  more  containing  than  the  good  is,  and 
are  clearly  of  opinion  that  the  obligatory  and  contain¬ 
ing  power  of  the  good  is  as  nothing ;  and  yet  this  is  the 
principle  which  I  would  fain  learn  if  any  one  would 
teach  me.  But  as  I  have  failed  either  to  discover  my¬ 
self,  or  to  learn  of  any  one  else,  the  nature  of  the  best, 
I  will  exhibit  to  you,  if  you  like,  what  I  have  found  to 
be  the  second  best  mode  of  inquiring  into  the  cause. 

I  should  very  much  like  to  hear  that,  he  replied. 

Socrates  proceeded :  —  I  thought  that  as  I  had 
failed  in  the  contemplation  of  true  existence,  I  ought 
to  be  careful  that  I  did  not  lose  the  eye  of  my  soul;  as 
people  may  injure  their  bodily  eye  by  observing  and 
gazing  on  the  sun  during  an  eclipse,  unless  they  take 
the  precaution  of  only  looking  at  the  image  reflected 
in  the  water,  or  in  some  similar  medium.  That  oc¬ 
curred  to  me,  and  I  was  afraid  that  my  soul  might  be 
blinded  altogether  if  I  looked  at  things  with  my  eyes 
or  tried  by  the  help  of  the  senses  to  apprehend  them. 
And  I  thought  that  I  had  better  have  recourse  to 


246 


PHAEDO 


ideas,  and  seek  in  them  the  truth  of  existence.  I  dare 
say  that  the  simile  is  not  perfect  —  for  I  am  very  far 
from  admitting  that  he  who  contemplates  existences 
through  the  medium  of  ideas,  sees  them  only  “  through 
a  glass  darkly,”  any  more  than  he  who  sees  them  in 
their  working  and  effects.  However,  this  was  the 
method  which  I  adopted:  I  first  assumed  some  prin¬ 
ciple  which  I  judged  to  be  the  strongest,  and  then  I 
affirmed  as  true  whatever  seemed  to  agree  with  this, 
whether  relating  to  the  cause  or  to  anything  else ;  and 
that  which  disagreed  I  regarded  as  untrue.  But  I 
should  like  to  explain  my  meaning  clearly,  as  I  do  not 
think  that  you  understand  me. 

No  indeed,  replied  Cebes,  not  very  well. 

There  is  nothing  new,  he  said,  in  what  I  am  about 
to  tell  you;  but  only  what  I  have  been  always  and 
everywhere  repeating  in  the  previous  discussion  and 
on  other  occasions:  I  want  to  show  you  the  nature  of 
that  cause  which  has  occupied  my  thoughts,  and  I 
shall  have  to  go  back  to  those  familiar  words  which 
are  in  the  mouth  of  every  one,  and  first  of  all  assume 
that  there  is  an  absolute  beauty  and  goodness,  and 
greatness,  and  the  like ;  grant  me  this,  and  I  hope  to  be 
able  to  show  you  the  nature  of  the  cause,  and  to  prove 
the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

Cebes  said :  You  may  proceed  at  once  with  the  proof, 
as  I  readily  grant  you  this. 

Well,  he  said,  then  I  should  like  to  know  whether 
you  agree  with  me  in  the  next  step;  for  I  can  not  help 
thinking  that  if  there.be  anything  beautiful  other  than 
absolute  beauty,  that  can  only  be  beautiful  in  as  far  as 
it  partakes  of  absolute  beauty  —  and  this  I  should  say 
of  everything.  Ho  you  agree  in  this  notion  of  the 
cause? 

Yes,  he  said,  I  agree. 

He  proceeded :  I  know  nothing  and  can  understand 


PHAEDO 


247 


nothing  of  any  other  of  those  wise  causes  which  are 
alleged ;  and  if  a  person  says  to  me  that  the  bloom  of 
color,  or  form,  or  anything  else  of  that  sort  is  a  source 
of  beauty,  I  leave  all  that,  which  is  only  confusing  to 
me,  and  simply  and  singly,  and  perhaps  foolishly, 
hold  and  am  assured  in  my  own  mind  that  nothing 
makes  a  thing  beautiful  but  the  presence  and  partici¬ 
pation  of  beauty  in  whatever  way  or  manner  obtained ; 
for  as  to  the  manner  I  am  uncertain,  but  I  stoutly  con¬ 
tend  that  by  beauty  all  beautiful  things  become  beauti¬ 
ful.  That  appears  to  me  to  be  the  only  safe  answer 
that  I  can  give,  either  to  myself  or  to  any  other,  and 
to  that  I  cling,  in  the  persuasion  that  I  shall  never  be 
overthrown,  and  that  I  may  safely  answer  to  myself 
or  any  other,  that  by  beauty  beautiful  things  become 
beautiful.  Do  you  not  agree  to  that? 

Yes,  I  agree. 

And  that  by  greatness  only  great  things  become 
great  and  greater  greater,  and  by  smallness  the  less 
become  less. 

True. 

Then  if  a  person  remarks  that  A  is  taller  by  a  head 
than  B,  and  B  less  by  a  head  than  A,  you  would  refuse 
to  admit  this,  and  would  stoutly  contend  that  what 
you  mean  is  only  that  the  greater  is  greater  by,  and  by 
reason  of,  greatness,  and  the  less  is  less  only  by,  or  by 
reason  of,  smallness;  and  thus  you  would  avoid  the 
danger  of  saying  that  the  greater  is  greater  and  the 
less  less  by  the  measure  of  the  head,  which  is  the  same 
in  both,  and  would  also  avoid  the  monstrous  absurdity 
of  supposing  that  the  greater  man  is  greater  by 
reason  of  the  head,  which  is  small.  Would  you  not 
be  afraid  of  that? 

Indeed,  I  should,  said  Cebes,  laughing. 

In  like  manner  you  would  be  afraid  to  say  that  ten 
exceeded  eight  by,  and  by  reason  of,  two ;  but 


248 


PHAEDO 


would  say  by,  and  by  reason  of,  number;  or  that  two 
cubits  exceed  one  cubit  by  a  half,  but  by  magnitude? 
—  that  is  what  you  would  say,  for  there  is  the  same 
danger  in  both  cases. 

Very  true,  he  said. 

Again,  would  you  not  be  cautious  of  affirming  that 
the  addition  of  one  to  one,  or  the  division  of  one,  is  the 
cause  of  two?  And  you  would  loudly  asseverate  that 
you  know  of  no  way  in  which  anything  comes  into 
existence  except  by  participation  in  its  own  proper 
essence,  and  consequently,  as  far  as  you  know,  the 
only  cause  of  two  is  the  participation  in  duality; 
that  is,  the  way  to  make  two,  and  the  participation  in 
one  is  the  way  to  make  one.  You  would  say:  I  will  let 
alone  puzzles  of  division  and  addition  —  wiser  heads 
than  mine  may  answer  them;  inexperienced  as  I  am, 
and  ready  to  start,  as  the  proverb  says,  at  my  own 
shadow,  I  can  not  afford  to  give  up  the  sure  ground 
of  a  principle.  And  if  any  one  assails  you  there,  you 
would  not  mind  him,  or  answer  him,  until  you  had 
seen  whether  the  consequences  which  follow  agree 
with  one  another  or  not,  and  when  you  are  further 
required  to  give  an  explanation  of  this  principle,  you 
would  go  on  to  assume  a  higher  principle,  and  the  best 
of  the  higher  ones  until  you  found  a  resting-place ;  but 
you  would  not  confuse  the  principle  and  the  con¬ 
sequences  in  your  reasoning,  like  the  Eristics  —  at 
least  if  you  wanted  to  discover  real  existence.  Not 
that  this  confusion  signifies  to  them  who  never  care  or 
think  about  the  matter  at  all,  for  they  have  the  wit 
to  be  well  pleased  with  themselves  however  great  may 
be  the  turmoil  of  their  ideas.  But  you,  if  you  are  a 
philosopher,  will,  I  believe,  do  as  I  say. 

What  you  say  is  most  true,  said  Simmias  and  Cebes, 
both  speaking  at  once. 

Ech.  Yes,  Phaedo ;  and  I  don’t  wonder  at  their 


PHAEDO 


249 


assenting.  Any  one  who  has  the  least  sense  will 
acknowledge  the  wonderful  clearness  of  Socrates’ 
reasoning. 

Phaed.  Certainly,  Echecrates;  and  that  was  the 
feeling  of  the  whole  company  at  the  time. 

Ech.  Yes,  and  equally  of  ourselves,  who  were  not 
of  the  company,  and  are  now  listening  to  your  recital. 
But  what  followed? 

Phaed.  After  all  this  was  admitted,  and  they  had 
agreed  about  the  existence  of  ideas  and  the  participa¬ 
tion  in  them  of  the  other  things  which  derive  their 
names  from  them,  Socrates,  if  I  remember  rightly, 
said:  — 

This  is  your  way  of  speaking ;  and  yet  when  you  say 
that  Simmias  is  greater  than  Socrates  and  less  than 
Phaedo,  do  you  not  predicate  of  Simmias  both  great¬ 
ness  and  smallness? 

Yes,  I  do. 

But  still  you  allow  that  Simmias  does  not  really 
exceed  Socrates,  as  the  words  may  seem  to  imply, 
because  he  is  Simmias,  but  by  reason  of  the  size  which 
he  has;  just  as  Simmias  does  not  exceed  Socrates  be¬ 
cause  he  is  Simmias,  any  more  than  because  Socrates 
is  Socrates,  but  because  he  has  smallness  when 
compared  with  the  greatness  of  Simmias? 

True. 

And  if  Phaedo  exceeds  him  in  size,  this  is  not  be¬ 
cause  Phaedo  is  Phaedo,  but  because  Phaedo  has 
greatness  relatively  to  Simmias,  who  is  comparatively 
smaller? 

That  is  true. 

And  therefore  Simmias  is  said  to  be  great,  and  is 
also  said  to  be  small,  because  he  is  in  a  mean  between 
them,  exceeding  the  smallness  of  the  one  by  his  great¬ 
ness,  and  allowing  the  greatness  of  the  other  to  exceed 
his  smallness.  He  added,  laughing,  I  am  speaking 


250 


PHAEDO 


like  a  book,  but  I  believe  that  what  I  am  saying  is 
true. 

Simmias  assented  to  this. 

The  reason  why  I  say  this,  is  that  I  want  you  to 
agree  with  me  in  thinking,  not  only  that  absolute 
greatness  will  never  be  great  and  also  small,  but  that 
greatness  in  us  or  in  the  concrete  will  never  admit  the 
small  or  admit  of  being  exceeded :  instead  of  this  one 
of  two  things  will  happen,  either  the  greater  will  fly 
or  retire  before  the  opposite,  which  is  the  less,  or  at 
the  advance  of  the  less  will  cease  to  exist;  but  will 
not,  if  allowing  or  admitting  smallness,  be  changed 
by  that;  even  as  I,  having  received  and  admitted 
smallness  when  compared  with  Simmias,  remain  just 
as  I  was,  and  am  the  same  small  person.  And  as  the 
idea  of  greatness  can  not  condescend  ever  to  be  or 
become  small,  in  like  manner  the  smallness  in  us  can 
not  be  or  become  great;  nor  can  any  other  opposite 
which  remains  the  same  ever  be  or  become  its  own 
opposite,  but  either  passes  away  or  perishes  in  the 
change. 

That,  replied  Cebes,  is  quite  my  notion. 

One  of  the  company,  though  I  do  not  exactly  re¬ 
member  which  of  them,  on  hearing  this,  said:  By 
heaven,  is  not  this  the  direct  contrary  of  what  was 
admitted  before  —  that  out  of  the  greater  came  the 
less  and  out  of  the  less  the  greater,  and  that  opposites 
were  simply  generated  from  opposites;  whereas  now 
this  seems  to  be  utterly  denied. 

Socrates  inclined  his  head  to  the  speaker  and  lis¬ 
tened.  I  like  your  courage,  he  said,  in  reminding  us 
of  this.  But  you  do  not  observe  that  there  is  a  dif¬ 
ference  in  the  two  cases.  For  then  we  were  speaking 
of  opposites  in  the  concrete,  and  now  of  the  essential 
opposite  which,  as  is  affirmed,  neither  in  us  nor  in 
nature  can  ever  be  at  variance  with  itself :  then,  my 


PHAEDO 


251 


friend,  we  were  speaking  of  things  in  which  oppo¬ 
sites  are  inherent  and  which  are  called  after  them, 
but  now  about  the  opposites  which  are  inherent  in 
them  and  which  give  their  name  to  them ;  these  essen¬ 
tial  opposites  will  never,  as  we  maintain,  admit  of 
*  generation  into  or  out  of  one  another.  At  the  same 
time,  turning  to  Cebes,  he  said:  Were  you  at  all  dis¬ 
concerted,  Cebes,  at  our  friend’s  objection? 

That  was  not  my  feeling,  said  Cebes;  and  yet  I  can 
not  deny  that  I  am  apt  to  be  disconcerted. 

Then  we  are  agreed  after  all,  said  Socrates,  that 
the  opposite  will  never  in  any  case  be  opposed  to 
itself? 

To  that  we  are  quite  agreed,  he  replied. 

Yet  once  more  let  me  ask  you  to  consider  the  ques¬ 
tion  from  another  point  of  view,  and  see  whether  you 
agree  with  me :  —  There  is  a  thing  which  you  term 
heat,  and  another  thing  which  you  term  cold? 

Certainly. 

But  are  they  the  same  as  fire  and  snow? 

Most  assuredly  not. 

Heat  is  not  the  same  as  fire,  nor  is  cold  the  same 
as  snow? 


No. 


And  yet  you  will  surely  admit,  that  when  snow, 
as  was  before  said,  is  under  the  influence  of  heat,  they 
will  not  remain  snow  and  heat;  but  at  the  advance 
of  the  heat,  the  snow  will  either  retire  or  perish? 

Very  true,  he  replied. 

And  the  fire  too  at  the  advance  of  the  cold  will 
either  retire  or  perish ;  and  when  the  fire  is  under  the 
influence  of  the  cold,  they  will  not  remain  as  before, 
fire  and  cold. 

That  is  true,  he  said. 

And  in  some  cases  the  name  of  the  idea  is  not  con¬ 
fined  to  the  idea;  but  anything  else  which,  not  being 


252 


PHAEDO 


the  idea,  exists  only  in  the  form  of  the  idea,  may  also 
lay  claim  to  it.  I  will  try  to  make  this  clearer  by  an 
example :  —  The  odd  number  is  always  called  by  the 
name  of  odd? 

Very  true. 

But  is  this  the  only  thing  which  is  called  odd?  Are 
there  not  other  things  which  have  their  own  name,  and 
yet  are  called  odd,  because,  although  not  the  same  as 
oddness,  they  are  never  without  oddness?  —  that  is 
what  I  mean  to  ask  —  whether  numbers  such  as  the 
number  three  are  not  of  the  class  of  odd.  And  there 
are  many  other  examples:  would  you  not  say,  for 
example,  that  three  may  be  called  by  its  proper  name, 
and  also  be  called  odd,  which  is  not  the  same  with 
three  ?  and  this  may  be  said  not  only  of  three  but  also 
of  five,  and  every  alternate  number  —  each  of  them 
without  being  oddness  is  odd,  and  in  the  same  way 
two  and  four,  and  the  whole  series  of  alternate  num¬ 
bers,  has  every  number  even,  without  being  evenness. 
Do  you  admit  that? 

Yes,  he  said,  how  can  I  deny  that? 

Then  now  mark  the  point  at  which  I  am  aiming :  — 
not  only  do  essential  opposites  exclude  one  another, 
but  also  concrete  things,  which,  although  not  in  them¬ 
selves  opposed,  contain  opposites;  these,  I  say,  also 
reject  the  idea  which  is  opposed  to  that  which  is  con¬ 
tained  in  them,  and  at  the  advance  of  that  they  either 
perish  or  withdraw.  There  is  the  number  three  for 
example ;  —  will  not  that  endure  annihilation  or  any¬ 
thing  sooner  than  be  converted  into  an  even  number, 

remaining  three? 

Very  true,  said  Cebes. 

And  yet,  he  said,  the  number  two  is  certainly  not 
opposed  to  the  number  three? 

It  is  not. 

Then  not  only  do  opposite  ideas  repel  the  advance 


PHAEDO 


253 


of  one  another,  but  also  there  are  other  things  which 
repel  the  approach  of  opposites. 

That  is  quite  true,  he  said. 

Suppose,  he  said,  that  we  endeavor,  if  possible,  to 
determine  what  these  are. 

By  all  means. 

Are  they  not,  Cebes,  such  as  compel  the  things  of 
which  they  have  possession,  not  only  to  take  their  own 
form,  but  also  the  form  of  some  opposite? 

What  do  you  mean  ? 

I  mean,  as  I  was  just  now  saying,  and  have  no  need 
to  repeat  to  you,  that  those  things  which  are  possessed 
by  the  number  three  must  not  only  be  three  in  num¬ 
ber,  but  must  also  be  odd. 

Quite  true. 

And  on  this  oddness,  of  which  the  number  three  has 
the  impress,  the  opposite  idea  will  never  intrude? 

No. 

And  this  impress  was  given  by  the  odd  principle? 

Yes. 

And  to  the  odd  is  opposed  the  even? 

True. 

Then  the  idea  of  the  even  number  will  never  arrive 
at  three  ? 

No. 

Then  three  has  no  part  in  the  even? 

None. 

Then  the  triad  or  number  three  is  uneven? 

Very  true. 

To  return  then  to  my  distinction  of  natures  which 
are  not  opposites,  and  yet  do  not  admit  opposites: 
as  in  this  instance,  three,  although  not  opposed  to  the 
even,  does  not  any  the  more  admit  of  the  even,  but 
always  brings  the  opposite  into  play  on  the  other  side ; 
or  as  two  does  not  receive  the  odd,  or  fire  the  cold  — 
from  these  examples  (and  there  are  many  more  of 


254 


PHAEDO 


them)  perhaps  you  may  be  able  to  arrive  at  the  gen¬ 
eral  conclusion,  that  not  only  opposites  will  not  re¬ 
ceive  opposites,  but  also  that  nothing  which  brings 
the  opposite  will  admit  the  opposite  of  that  which  it 
brings  in  that  to  which  it  is  brought.  And  here  let 
me  recapitulate  —  for  there  is  no  harm  in  repetition. 
The  number  five  will  not  admit  the  nature  of  the  even, 
any  more  than  ten,  which  is  the  double  of  five,  will 
admit  the  nature  of  the  odd  —  the  double,  though  not 
strictly  opposed  to  the  odd,  rejects  the  odd  altogether. 
Nor  again  will  parts  in  the  ratio  of  3:2,  nor  any 
fraction  in  which  there  is  a  half,  nor  again  in  which 
there  is  a  third,  admit  the  notion  of  the  whole,  al¬ 
though  they  are  not  opposed  to  the  whole.  You  will 
agree  to  that? 

Yes,  he  said,  I  entirely  agree  and  go  along  with 
you  in  that. 

And  now,  he  said,  I  think  that  I  may  begin  again ; 
and  to  the  question  which  I  am  about  to  ask  I  will 
beg  you  to  give  not  the  old  safe  answer,  but  another, 
of  which  I  will  offer  you  an  example;  and  I  hope 
that  you  will  find  in  what  has  been  just  said  another 
foundation  which  is  as  safe.  I  mean  that  if  any  one 
asks  you  “  what  that  is,  the  inherence  of  which  makes 
the  body  hot,”  you  will  reply  not  heat  (this  is  what 
I  call  the  safe  and  stupid  answer),  but  fire,  a  far  bet¬ 
ter  answer,  which  we  are  now  in  a  condition  to  give. 
Or  if  any  one  asks  you  “  why  a  body  is  diseased,”  you 
will  not  say  from  disease,  but  from  fever;  and  instead 
of  saying  that  oddness  is  the  cause  of  odd  numbers, 
you  will  say  that  monad  is  the  cause  of  them:  and 
so  of  things  in  general,  as  I  dare  say  that  you  will 
understand  sufficiently  without  my  adducing  any  fur* 
ther  examples. 

Yes,  he  said,  I  quite  understand  you. 


PHAEDO 


255 


Tell  me,  then,  what  is  that  the  inherence  of  which 
will  render  the  body  alive? 

The  soul,  he  replied. 

And  is  this  always  the  case? 

Yes,  he  said,  of  course. 

Then  whatever  the  soul  possesses,  to  that  she  comes 
bearing  life? 

Yes,  certainly. 

And  is  there  any  opposite  to  life? 

There  is,  he  said. 

And  what  is  that? 

Death. 

Then  the  soul,  as  has  been  acknowledged,  will  never 
receive  the  opposite  of  what  she  brings.  And  now, 
he  said,  what  did  we  call  that  principle  which  repels 
the  even? 

The  odd. 

And  that  principle  which  repels  the  musical,  or  the 
just? 

The  unmusical,  he  said,  and  the  unjust. 

And  what  do  we  call  that  principle  which  does  not 
admit  of  death? 

The  immortal,  he  said. 

And  does  the  soul  admit  of  death? 

No. 

Then  the  soul  is  immortal? 

Yes,  he  said. 

And  may  we  say  that  this  is  proven  ? 

Yes,  abundantly  proven,  Socrates,  he  replied. 

And  supposing  that  the  odd  were  imperishable, 
must  not  three  be  imperishable? 

Of  course. 

And  if  that  which  is  cold  were  imperishable,  when 
the  warm  principle  came  attacking  the  snow,  must 
not  the  snow  have  retired  whole  and  unmelted  —  for 


256 


PHAEDO 


it  could  never  have  perished,  nor  could  it  have  re¬ 
mained  and  admitted  the  heat? 

True,  he  said. 

Again,  if  the  uncooling  or  warm  principle  were 
imperishable,  the  fire  when  assailed  by  cold  would  not 
have  perished  or  have  been  extinguished,  but  would 
have  gone  away  unaffected  ? 

Certainly,  he  said. 

And  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  immortal:  if  the 
immortal  is  also  imperishable,  the  soul  when  attacked 
by  death  can  not  perish;  for  the  preceding  argument 
shows  that  the  soul  will  not  admit  of  death,  or  ever  be 
dead,  any  more  than  three  or  the  odd  number  will 
admit  of  the  even,  or  fire,  or  the  heat  in  the  fire,  of 
the  cold.  Yet  a  person  may  say:  “  But  although  the 
odd  will  not  become  even  at  the  approach  of  the  even, 
why  may  not  the  odd  perish  and  the  even  take  the 
place  of  the  odd?  ”  Now  to  him  who  makes  this  ob¬ 
jection,  we  can  not  answer  that  the  odd  principle  is 
imperishable;  for  this  has  not  been  acknowledged,  but 
if  this  had  been  acknowledged,  there  would  have  been 
no  difficulty  in  contending  that  at  the  approach  of 
the  even  the  odd  principle  and  the  number  three  took 
up  their  departure;  and  the  same  argument  would 
have  held  good  of  fire  and  heat  and  any  other  thing. 

Very  true. 

And  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  immortal:  if  the 
immortal  is  also  imperishable,  then  the  soul  will  be  im¬ 
perishable  as  well  as  immortal;  but  if  not,  some  other 
proof  of  her  imperishableness  will  have  to  be  given. 

No  other  proof  is  needed,  he  said;  for  if  the  im¬ 
mortal,  being  eternal,  is  liable  to  perish,  then  nothing 
is  imperishable. 

Yes,  replied  Socrates,  all  men  will  agree  that  God, 
and  the  essential  form  of  life,  and  the  immortal  in 
general,  will  never  perish. 


PHAEDO 


257 


Yes,  all  men,  he  said  —  that  is  true;  and  what  is 
more,  gods,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  as  well  as  men. 

Seeing  then  that  the  immortal  is  indestructible, 
must  not  the  soul,  if  she  is  immortal,  be  also  imperish¬ 
able? 

Most  certainly. 

Then  when  death  attacks  a  man,  the  mortal  portion 
of  him  may  be  supposed  to  die,  but  the  immortal  goes 
out  of  the  way  of  death  and  is  preserved  safe  and 
sound  ? 

True. 

Then,  Cebes,  beyond  question,  the  soul  is  immortal 
and  imperishable,  and  our  souls  will  truly  exist  in 
another  world! 

I  am  convinced,  Socrates,  said  Cebes,  and  have 
nothing  more  to  object;  but  if  my  friend  Simmias,  or 
any  one  else,  has  any  further  objection,  he  had  better 
speak  out,  and  not  keep  silence,  since  I  do  not  know 
how  there  can  ever  be  a  more  fitting  time  to  which  he 
can  defer  the  discussion,  if  there  is  anything  which  he 
wants  to  say  or  have  said. 

But  I  have  nothing  more  to  say,  replied  Simmias; 
nor  did  I  see  any  room  for  uncertainty,  except  that 
which  arises  necessarily  out  of  the  greatness  of  the 
subject  and  the  feebleness  of  man,  and  which  I  can 
not  help  feeling. 

Yes,  Simmias,  replied  Socrates,  that  is  well  said: 
and  more  than  that,  first  principles,  even  if  they  ap¬ 
pear  certain,  should  be  carefully  considered;  and  when 
they  are  satisfactorily  ascertained,  then,  with  a  sort 
of  hesitating  confidence  in  human  reason,  you  may, 
I  think,  follow  the  course  of  the  argument;  and  if  this 
is  clear,  there  will  be  no  need  for  any  further  inquiry. 

That,  he  said,  is  true. 

But  then,  O  my  friends,  he  said,  if  the  soul  is  really 
immortal,  what  care  should  be  taken  of  her,  not  only 


258 


PHAEDO 


in  respect  of  the  portion  of  time  which  is  called  life, 
but  of  eternity!  And  the  danger  of  neglecting  her 
from  this  point  of  view  does  indeed  appear  to  be 
awful.  If  death  had  only  b^en  the  end  of  all,  the 
wicked  would  have  had  a  good  bargain  in  dying,  for 
they  would  have  been  happily  quit  not  only  of  their 
body,  but  of  their  own  evil  together  with  their  souls. 
But  now,  as  the  soul  plainly  appears  to  be  immortal, 
there  is  no  release  or  salvation  from  evil  except  the 
attainment  of  the  highest  virtue  and  wisdom.  For 
the  soul  when  on  her  progress  to  the  world  below 
takes  nothing  with  her  but  nurture  and  education; 
which  are  indeed  said  greatly  to  benefit  or  greatly  to 
injure  the  departed,  at  the  very  beginning  of  his 
pilgrimage  in  the  other  world. 

For  after  death,  as  they  say,  the  genius  of  each  in¬ 
dividual,  to  whom  he  belonged  in  life,  leads  him  to  a 
certain  place  in  which  the  dead  are  gathered  together 
for  judgment,  whence  they  go  into  the  world  below, 
following  the  guide,  who  is  appointed  to  conduct  them 
from  this  world  to  the  other :  and  when  they  have  there 
received  their  due  and  remained  their  time,  another 
guide  brings  them  back  again  after  many  revolutions 
of  ages.  Now  this  journey  to  the  other  world  is  nqt, 
as  Aeschylus  says  in  the  Telephus,  a  single  and 
straight  path  —  no  guide  would  be  wanted  for  that, 
and  no  one  could  miss  a  single  path;  but  there  are 
many  partings  of  the  road,  and  windings,  as  I  must 
infer  from  the  rites  and  sacrifices  which  are  offered 
to  the  gods  below  in  places  where  three  ways  meet  on 
earth.  The  wise  and  orderly  soul  is  conscious  of  her 
situation,  and  follows  in  the  path;  but  the  soul  which 
desires  the  body,  and  which,  as  I  was  relating  before, 
has  long  been  fluttering  about  the  lifeless  frame  and 
the  world  of  sight,  is  after  many  struggles  and  many 
sufferings  hardly  and  with  violence  carried  away  by 


PHAEDO 


259 


her  attendant  genius,  and  when  she  arrives  at  the  place 
where  the  other  souls  are  gathered,  if  she  be  impure 
and  have  done  impure  deeds,  or  been  concerned  in 
foul  murders  or  other  crimes  which  are  the  brothers  of 
these,  and  the  works  of  brothers  in  crime  —  from  that 
soul  every  one  flees  and  turns  away ;  no  one  will  be  her 
companion,  no  one  her  guide,  but  alone  she  wanders 
in  extremity  of  evil  until  certain  times  are  fulfilled, 
and  when  they  are  fulfilled,  she  is  borne  irresistibly 
to  her  own  fitting  habitation;  as  every  pure  and  just 
soul  which  has  passed  through  life  in  the  company  and 
under  the  guidance  of  the  gods  has  also  her  own 
proper  home. 

Now  the  earth  has  divers  wonderful  regions,  and  is 
indeed  in  nature  and  extent  very  unlike  the  notions  of 
geographers,  as  I  believe  on  the  authority  of  one  who 
shall  be  nameless. 

What  do  you  mean,  Socrates?  said  Simmias.  I 
have  myself  heard  many  descriptions  of  the  earth,  but 
I  do  not  know  in  what  you  are  putting  your  faith,  and 
I  should  like  to  know. 

Well,  Simmias,  replied  Socrates,  the  recital  of  a 
tale  does  not,  I  think,  require  the  art  of  Glaucus ;  and 
I  know  not  that  the  art  of  Glaucus  could  prove  the 
truth  of  my  tale,  which  I  myself  should  never  be  able 
to  prove,  and  even  if  I  could,  I  fear,  Simmias,  that 
my  life  would  come  to  an  end  before  the  argument 
was  completed.  I  may  describe  to  you,  however,  the 
form  and  regions  of  the  earth  according  to  my  con¬ 
ception  of  them. 

That,  said  Simmias,  will  be  enough. 

Well  then,  he  said,  my  conviction  is,  that  the  earth 
is  a  round  body  in  the  centre  of  the  heavens,  and  there¬ 
fore  has  no  need  of  air  or  any  similar  force  as  a  sup¬ 
port,  but  is  kept  there  and  hindered  from  falling  or 
inclining  any  way  by  equability  of  the  surrounding 


260 


PHAEDO 


heaven  and  by  her  own  equipoise.  For  that  which, 
being  in  equipoise,  is  in  the  centre  of  that  which  is 
equably  diffused,  will  not  incline  any  way  in  any 
degree,  but  will  always  remain  in  the  same  state  and 
not  deviate.  And  this  is  my  first  notion. 

Which  is  surely  a  correct  one,  said  Simmias. 

Also  I  believe  that  the  earth  is  very  vast,  and  that 
we  who  dwell  in  the  region  extending  from  the  river 
Phasis  to  the  Pillars  of  Heracles  along  the  borders  of 
the  sea,  are  just  like  ants  or  frogs  about  a  marsh,  and 
inhabit  a  small  portion  only,  and  that  many  others 
dwell  in  many  like  places.  For  I  should  say  that  in 
all  parts  of  the  earth  there  are  hollows  of  various 
forms  and  sizes,  into  which  the  water  and  the  mist 
and  the  air  collect;  and  that  the  true  earth  is  pure 
and  in  the  pure  heaven,  in  which  also  are  the  stars  — 
that  is  the  heaven  which  is  commonly  spoken  of  as  the 
ether,  of  which  this  is  but  the  sediment  collecting  in 
the  hollows  of  the  earth.  But  we  who  live  in  these 
hollows  are  deceived  into  the  notion  that  we  are  dwell¬ 
ing  above  on  the  surface  of  the  earth;  which  is  just 
as  if  a  creature  who  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea  were 
to  fancy  that  he  was  on  the  surface  of  the  water,  and 
that  the  sea  was  the  heaven  through  which  he  saw  the 
sun  and  the  other  stars,  —  he  having  never  come  to 
the  surface  by  reason  of  his  feebleness  and  sluggish¬ 
ness,  and  having  never  lifted  up  his  head  and  seen,  nor 
ever  heard  from  one  who  had  seen,  this  other  region 
which  is  so  much  purer  and  fairer  than  his  own.  Now 
this  is  exactly  our  case :  for  we  are  dwelling  in  a  hollow 
of  the  earth,  and  fancy  that  we  are  on  the  surface;  - 
and  the  air  we  call  the  heaven,  and  in  this  we  imagine 
that  the  stars  move.  But  this  is  also  owing  to  our 
feebleness  and  sluggishness,  which  prevent  our  reach¬ 
ing  the  surface  of  the  air:  for  if  any  man  could  arrive 
at  the  exterior  limit,  or  take  the  wings  of  a  bird  and 


PHAEDO 


261 


fly  upward,  like  a  fish  who  puts  his  head  out  and  sees 
this  world,  he  would  see  a  wTorld  beyond;  and,  if  the 
nature  of  man  could  sustain  the  sight,  he  would 
acknowledge  that  this  was  the  place  of  the  true  heaven 
and  the  true  light  and  the  true  stars.  For  this  earth, 
and  the  stones,  and  the  entire  region  which  surrounds 
us,  are  spoiled  and  corroded,  like  the  things  in  the  sea 
which  are  corroded  by  the  brine ;  for  in  the  sea  too  there 
is  hardly  any  noble  or  perfect  growth,  but  clefts  only, 
and  sand,  and  an  endless  slough  of  mud ;  and  even  the 
shore  is  not  to  be  compared  to  the  fairer  sights  of 
this  world.  And  greater  far  is  the  superiority  of  the 
other.  Now  of  that  upper  earth  which  is  under  the 
heaven,  I  can  tell  you  a  charming  tale,  Simmias,  which 
is  well  worth  hearing. 

And  we,  Socrates,  replied  Simmias,  shall  be 
charmed  to  listen. 

The  tale,  my  friend,  he  said,  is  as  follows:  —  In  the 
first  place,  the  earth,  when  looked  at  from  above,  is 
like  one  of  those  balls  which  have  leather  coverings  in 
twelve  pieces,  and  is  of  divers  colors,  of  which  the 
colors  which  painters  use  on  earth  are  only  a  sample. 
But  there  the  whole  earth  is  made  up  of  them,  and 
they  are  brighter  far  and  clearer  than  ours;  there  is  a 
purple  of  wonderful  lustre,  also  the  radiance  of  gold, 
and  the  white  which  is  in  the  earth  is  wdiiter  than  any 
chalk  or  snow.  Of  these  and  other  colors  the  earth  is 
made  up,  and  they  are  more  in  number  and  fairer 
than  the  eye  of  man  has  ever  seen ;  and  the  very  hol¬ 
lows  (of  which  I  w^as  speaking)  filled  with  air  and 
wrater  are  seen  like  light  flashing  amid  the  other  colors, 
and  have  a  color  of  their  own,  which  gives  a  sort  of 
unity  to  the  variety  of  earth.  And  in  this  fair 
region  everything  that  grows  —  trees,  and  flowers, 
and  fruits  —  are  in  a  like  degree  fairer  than  any  here; 
and  there  are  hills,  and  stones  in  them  in  a  like  degree 


262 


PHAEDO 


smoother,  and  more  transparent,  and  fairer  in  color 
than  our  highly-valued  emeralds  and  sardonyxes  and 
jaspers,  and  other  gems,  which  are  but  minute  frag¬ 
ments  of  them:  for  there  all  the  stones  are  like  our 
precious  stones,  and  fairer  still.  The  reason  of  this  is, 
that  they  are  pure,  and  not,  like  our  precious  stones, 
infected  or  corroded  by  the  corrupt  briny  elements 
which  coagulate  among  us,  and  which  breed  foulness 
and  disease  both  in  earth  and  stones,  as  well  as  in 
animals  and  plants.  They  are  the  jewels  of  the  upper 
earth,  which  also  shines  with  gold  and  silver  and  the 
like,  and  they  are  visible  to  sight  and  large  and  abun¬ 
dant  and  found  in  every  region  of  the  earth,  and 
blessed  is  he  who  sees  them.  And  upon  the  earth  are 
animals  and  men,  some  in  a  middle  region,  others 
dwelling  about  the  air  as  we  dwell  about  the  sea; 
others  in  islands  which  the  air  flows  round,  near  the 
continent  :  and  in  a  word,  the  air  is  used  by  them  as 
the  water  and  the  sea  are  by  us,  and  the  ether  is  to 
them  what  the  air  is  to  us.  Moreover,  the  tempera¬ 
ment  of  their  season  is  such  that  they  have  no  disease, 
and  live  much  longer  than  we  do,  and  have  sight  and 
hearing  and  smell,  and  all  the  other  senses,  in  far 
greater  perfection,  in  the  same  degree  that  air  is  purer 
than  water  or  the  ether  than  air.  Also  they  have 
temples  and  sacred  places  in  which  the  gods  really 
dwell,  and  they  hear  their  voices  and  receive  their 
answers,  and  are  conscious  of  them  and  hold  converse 
with  them,  and  they  see  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  as 
they  really  are,  and  their  other  blessedness  is  of  a  piece 
with  this. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  the  whole  earth,  and  of  the 
things  which  are  around  the  earth ;  and  there  are 
divers  regions  in  the  hollows  on  the  face  of  the  globe 
everywhere,  some  of  them  deeper  and  also  wider  than 
that  which  we  inhabit,  others  deeper  and  with  a  nar- 


PIIAEDO 


263 


rower  opening  than  ours,  and  some  are  shallowei  and 
wider;  all  have  numerous  perforations,  and  passages 
broad  and  narrow  in  the  interior  of  the  earth,  connect¬ 
ing  them  with  one  another;  and  there  flows  into  and 
out  of  them,  as  into  basins,  a  vast  tide  of  water,  and 
huge  subterranean  streams  of  perennial  livers,  and 
springs  hot  and  cold,  and  a  great  fire,  and  great  rivers 
of  fire,  and  streams  of  liquid  mud,  thin  or  thick  (like 
the  rivers  of  mud  in  Sicily,  and  the  lava  streams  which 
follow  them),  and  the  regions  about  which  they  hap¬ 
pen  to  flow  are  filled  up  with  them.  And  there  is  a 
sort  of  swing  in  the  interior  of  the  earth  which  moves 
all  this  up  and  down.  Now  the  swing  is  on  this  wise: 
—  There  is  a  chasm  which  is  the  vastest  of  them  all, 
and  pierces  right  through  the  whole  earth ;  this  is  that 
which  Homer  describes  in  the  wurds: 

“  par  off,  where  is  the  inmost  depth  beneath  the  eaith; 

and  which  he  in  other  places,  and  many  other  poets, 
have  called  Tartarus.  And  the  swing  is  caused  by  the 
streams  flowing  into  and  out  of  this  chasm,  and  they 
each  have  the  nature  of  the  soil  through  which  they 
flow.  And  the  reason  why  the  streams  are  always 
flowing  in  and  out,  is  that  the  watery  element  has  no 
bed  or  bottom,  and  is  surging  and  swinging  up  and 
down,  and  the  surrounding  wind  and  air  do  the  same; 
they  follow  the  water  up  and  down,  hither  and  thither, 
over  the  earth  —  just  as  in  respiring  the  air  is  always 
in  process  of  inhalation  and  exhalation ;  and  the 
|  wind  swinging  with  the  water  in  and  out  produces 
fearful  and  irresistible  blasts :  when  the  waters  retire 
with  a  rush  into  the  lower  parts  of  the  eaith,  as  they 
are  called,  they  flow  through  the  earth  into  those 
regions,  and  fill  them  up  as  with  the  alter  nate  motion 
of  a  pump,  and  then  when  they  leave  those  regions 
and  rush  back  hither,  they  again  fill  the  hollows  heie, 


264 


PHAEDO 


and  when  these  are  filled,  flow  through  subterranean 
channels  and  find  their  way  to  their  several  places, 
forming  seas,  and  lakes,  and  rivers,  and  springs. 
Thence  they  again  enter  the  earth,  some  of  them 
making  a  long  circuit  into  many  lands,  others  going  to 
few  places  and  those  not  distant;  and  again  fall  into 
Tartarus,  some  at  a  point  a  good  deal  lower  than  that 
at  which  they  rose,  and  others  not  much  lower,  but  all 
in  some  degree  lower  than  the  point  of  issue.  And 
some  burst  forth  again  on  the  opposite  side,  and  some 
on  the  same  side,  and  some  wind  round  the  earth  with 
one  or  many  folds  like  the  coils  of  a  serpent,  and 
descend  as  far  as  they  can,  but  always  return  and  fall 
into  the  lake.  The  rivers  on  either  side  can  descend 
only  to  the  centre  and  no  further,  for  to  the  rivers  on 
both  sides  the  opposite  side  is  a  precipice. 

Now  these  rivers  are  many,  and  mighty,  and 
diverse,  and  there  are  four  principle  ones,  of  which  the 
greatest  and  outermost  is  that  called  Oceanus,  which 
flows  round  the  earth  in  a  circle;  and  in  the  opposite 
direction  flows  Acheron,  which  passes  under  the  earth 
through  desert  places,  into  the  Acherusian  lake:  this 
is  the  lake  to  the  shores  of  which  the  souls  of  the  many 
go  wrhen  they  are  dead,  and  after  waiting  an  appointed 
time,  wrhich  is  to  some  a  longer  and  to  some  a  shorter 
time,  they  are  sent  back  again  to  be  born  as  animals. 
The  third  river  rises  between  the  two,  and  near  the 
place  of  rising  pours  into  a  vast  region  of  fire,  and 
forms  a  lake  larger  than  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  boil¬ 
ing  with  water  and  mud ;  and  proceeding  muddy  and 
turbid,  and  winding  about  the  earth,  comes,  among 
other  places,  to  the  extremities  of  the  Acherusian  lake, 
hut  mingles  not  with  the  waters  of  the  lake,  and  after 
making  many  coils  about  the  earth  plunges  into 
Tartarus  at  a  deeper  level.  This  is  that  Pyriphle- 
gethon,  as  the  stream  is  called,  which  throws  up  jets  of 


PHAEDO 


265 


fire  in  all  sorts  of  places.  The  fourth  river  goes  out 
on  the  opposite  side,  and  falls  first  of  all  into  a  wild 
and  savage  region,  which  is  all  of  a  dark  blue  color, 
like  lapis  lazuli ;  and  this  is  that  river  whSTis'called 
the  Stygian  river,  and  falls  into  and  forms  the  Lake 
Styx,  and  after  falling  into  the  lake  and  receiving 
strange  powers  in  the  waters,  passes  under  the  earth, 
winding  round  in  the  opposite  direction  to  Pyriphle- 
gethon  and  meeting  in  the  Acherusian  lake  from  the 
opposite  side.  And  the  water  of  this  river  too  mingles 
with  no  other,  but  flows  round  in  a  circle  and  falls  into 
Tartarus  over  against  Pyriphlegethon ;  and  the  name 
of  this  river,  as  the  poets  say,  is  Cocytus. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  the  other  world ;  and  when  the 
dead  arrive  at  the  place  to  which  the  genius  of  each 
severally  conveys  them,  first  of  all,  they  have  sentence 
passed  upon  them,  as  they  have  lived  well  and  piously 
or  not.  And  those  who  appear  to  have  lived  neither 
well  nor  ill,  go  to  the  river  Acheron,  and  mount  such 
conveyances  as  they  can  get,  and  are  carried  in  them 
to  the  lake,  and  there  they  dwell  and  are  purified  of 
their  evil  deeds,  and  suffer  the  penalty  of  the  wrongs 
which  they  have  done  to  others,  and  are  absolved,  and 
receive  the  rewards  of  their  good  deeds  according  to 
their  deserts.  But  those  who  appear  to' be  incurable 
by  reason  of  the  greatness  of  their  crimes  —  who  have 
committed  many  and  terrible  deeds  of  sacrilege,  mur¬ 
ders  foul  and  violent,  or  the  like  —  such  are  hurled 
into  Tartarus  which  is  their  suitable  destiny,  and  they 
never  come  out.  Those  again  who  have  committed 
crimes,  which,  although  great,  are  not  unpardonable 
—  who  in  a  moment  of  anger,  for  example,  have  done 
violence  to  a  father  or  a  mother,  and  have  repented 
for  the  remainder  of  their  lives,  or,  who  have  taken 
the  life  of  another  under  the  like  extenuating  circum¬ 
stances —  these  are  plunged  into  Tartarus,  the  pains 


266 


PHAEDO 


of  which  they  are  compelled  to  undergo  for  a  year, 
but  at  the  end  of  the  year  the  wave  casts  them  forth  — 
mere  homicides  by  way  of  Cocytus,  parricides  and 
matricides  by  Pyriphlegethon  —  and  they  are  borne 
to  the  Acherusian  lake,  and  there  they  lift  up  their 
voices  and  call  upon  the  victims  whom  they  have  slain 
or  wronged,  to  have  pity  on  them,  and  to  receive  them, 
and  to  let  them  come  out  of  the  river  into  the  lake. 
And  if  they  prevail,  then  they  come  forth  and  cease 
from  their  troubles;  but  if  not,  they  are  carried  back 
again  into  Tartarus  and  from  thence  into  the  rivers 
unceasingly,  until  they  obtain  mercy  from  those  whom 
they  have  wronged:  for  that  is  the  sentence  inflicted 
upon  them  by  their  judges.  Those  also  who  are  re¬ 
markable  for  having  led  holy  lives  are  released  frdm 
this  earthly  prison,  and  go  to  their  pure  home  which 
is  above,  and  dwell  in  the  purer  earth ;  and  those  who 
have  duly  purified  themselves  with  philosophy,  live 
henceforth  altogether  without  the  body,  in  mansions 
fairer  far  than  these,  which  may  not  be  described,  and 
of  which  the  time  would  fail  me  to  tell. 

Wherefore,  Simmias,  seeing  all  these  things,  what 
ought  not  we  to  do  in  order  to  obtain  virtue  and 
wisdom  in  this  life?  Fair  is  the  prize,  and  the  hope 
great ! 

I  do  not  mean  to  affirm  that  the  description  which 
I  have  given  of  the  soul  and  her  mansions  is  exactly 
true  —  a  man  of  sense  ought  hardly  to  say  that.  But 
I  do  say  that,  inasmuch  as  the  soul  is  shown  to  be 
immortal,  he  may  venture  to  think,  not  improperly 
or  unworthily,  that  something  of  the  kind  is  true. 
The  venture  is  a  glorious  one,  and  he  ought  to  comfort 
himself  with  words  like  these,  which  is  the  reason 
why  I  lengthen  out  the  tale.  Wherefore,  I  say,  let  a 
man  be  of  good  cheer  about  his  soul,  who  has  cast 
away  the  pleasures  and  ornaments  of  the  body  as  alien 


PHAEDO 


267 


to  him,  and  rather  hurtful  in  their  effects,  and  has 
followed  after  the  pleasures  of  knowledge  in  this  life; 
who  has  adorned  the  soul  in  her  own  proper  jewels, 
which  are  temperance,  and  justice,  and  courage,  and 
nobility,  and  truth  —  in  these  arrayed  she  is  ready  to 
go  on  her  journey  to  the  world  below,  when  her  time 
comes.  You,  Simmias  and  Cebes,  and  all  other  men, 
will  depart  at  some  time  or  other.  Me  already,  as  the 
tragic  poet  would  say,  the  voice  of  fate  calls.  Soon  I 
must  drink  the  poison;  and  I  think  that  I  had  better 
repair  to  the  bath  first,  in  order  that  the  women  may 
not  have  the  trouble  of  washing  my  body  after  I  am 
dead. 

.When  he  had  done  speaking,  Crito  said:  And  have 
you  any  commands  for  us,  Socrates  —  anything  to 
say  about  your  children,  or  any  other  matter  in  which 
we  can  serve  you? 

Nothing  particular,  he  said:  only,  as  I  have  always 
told  you,  I  would  have  you  look  to  yourselves ;  that  is 
a  service  which  you  may  always  be  doing  to  me  and 
mine  as  well  as  to  yourselves.  And  you  need  not  make 
professions;  for  if  you  take  no  thought  for  yourselves, 
and  wTalk  not  according  to  the  precepts  which  I  have 
given  you,  not  now  for  the  first  time,  the  warmth  of 
your  professions  will  be  of  no  avail. 

We  will  do  our  best,  said  Crito.  But  in  what  way 
would  you  have  us  bury  you? 

In  any  way  that  you  like;  only  you  must  get  hold 
of  me,  and  take  care  that  I  do  not  walk  away  from 
you.  Then  he  turned  to  us,  and  added  with  a  smile :  — 
I  can  not  make  Crito  believe  that  I  am  the  same 
Socrates  who  has  been  talking  and  conducting  the 
argument;  he  fancies  that  I  am  the  other  Socrates 
whom  he  will  soon  see,  a  dead  body  —  and  he  asks, 
ITow  shall  he  bury  me?  And  though  I  have  spoken 
many  words  in  the  endeavor  to  show  that  when  I  have 


268 


PHAEDO 


drunk  the  poison  I  shall  leave  you  and  go  to  the  joys 
of  the  blessed,  —  these  words  of  mine,  with  which  I 
comforted  you  and  myself,  have  had,  as  I  perceive, 
no  effect  upon  Crito.  And  therefore  I  want  you  to 
be  surety  for  me  now,  as  he  was  surety  for  me  at  the 
trial :  but  let  the  promise  be  of  another  sort ;  for  he  was 
my  surety  to  the  judges  that  I  would  remain,  but  you 
must  be  my  surety  to  him  that  I  shall  not  remain,  but 
go  away  and  depart ;  and  then  he  will  suffer  less  at  my 
death,  and  not  be  grieved  when  he  sees  my  body  being 
burned  or  buried.  I  would  not  have  him  sorrow  at  my 
hard  lot,  or  say  at  the  burial,  Thus  we  lay  out  Socrates, 
or,  Thus  we  follow  him  to  the  grave  or  bury  him;  for 
false  words  are  not  only  evil  in  themselves,  but  they 
infect  the  soul  with  evil.  Be  of  good  cheer,  then,  my 
dear  Crito,  and  say  that  you  are  burying  my  body 
only,  and  do  with  that  as  is  usual,  and  as  you  think 
best. 

When  he  had  spoken  these  words,  he  arose  and 
went  into  the  bath-chamber  with  Crito,  who  bid  us 
wait ;  and  we  waited,  talking  and  thinking  of  the  sub- 
ject  of  discourse,  and  also  of  the  greatness  of  our  sor¬ 
row;  he  was  like  a  father  of  whom  we  were  being 
bereaved,  and  we  were  about  to  pass  the  rest  of  our 
lives  as  orphans.  When  he  had  taken  the  bath  his 
children  were  brought  to  him —  (he  had  two  young 
sons  and  an  elder  one)  ;  and  the  women  of  his  family 
also  came,  and  he  talked  to  them  and  gave  them  a  few 
directions  in  the  presence  of  Crito;  and  he  then  dis¬ 
missed  them  and  returned  to  us. 

Now  the  hour  of  sunset  was  near,  for  a  good  deal 
of  time  had  passed  while  he  was  within.  When  he 
came  out,  he  sat  down  with  us  again  after  his  bath, 
but  not  much  was  said.  Soon  the  jailer,  who  was  the 
servant  of  the  eleven,  entered  and  stood  by  him,  say¬ 
ing: —  To  you,  Socrates,  whom  I  know  to  be  the 


PHAEDO 


269 


noblest  and  gentlest  and  best  of  all  who  ever  came  to 
this  place,  I  will  not  impute  the  angry  feelings  of 
other  men,  who  rage  and  swear  at  me,  when,  in  obedi¬ 
ence  to  the  authorities,  I  bid  them  drink  the 
poison  —  indeed,  I  am  sure  that  you  will  not  be  angry 
with  me;  for  others,  as  you  are  aware,  and  not  I,  are 
the  guilty  cause.  And  so  fare  you  well,  and  try  to 
bear  lightly  what  must  needs  be ;  you  know  my  errand. 
Then  bursting  into  tears  he  turned  away  and  went 
out. 

Socrates  looked  at  him  and  said :  I  return  your  good 
wishes,  and  will  do  as  you  bid.  Then  turning  to  us, 
he  said,  How  charming  the  man  is :  since  I  have  been 
in  prison  he  has  always  been  coming  to  see  me,  and  at 
times  he  would  talk  to  me,  and  was  as  good  as  could 
be  to  me,  and  now  see  how  generously  he  sorrows  for 
me.  But  we  must  do  as  he  says,  Crito ;  let  the  cup  be 
brought,  if  the  poison  is  prepared:  if  not,  let  the  at¬ 
tendant  prepare  some. 

Yet,  said  Crito,  the  sun  is  still  upon  the  hill-tops, 
and  many  a  one  has  taken  the  draught  late,  and 
after  the  announcement  has  been  made  to  him,  he  has 
eaten  and  drunk,  and  indulged  in  sensual  delights ;  do 
not  hasten  then,  there  is  still  time. 

Socrates  said:  Yes,  Crito,  and  they  of  whom  you 
speak  are  right  in  doing  thus,  for  they  think  that  they 
will  gain  by  the  delay ;  but  I  am  right  in  not  doing 
thus,  for  I  do  not  think  that  I  should  gain  anything 
by  drinking  the  poison  a  little  later;  I  should  be 
sparing  and  saving  a  life  which  is  already  gone;  I 
could  only  laugh  at  myself  for  this.  Please  then  to  do 
as  I  say,  and  not  to  refuse  me. 

Crito,  when  he  heard  this,  made  a  sign  to  the  serv¬ 
ant;  and  the  servant  went  in,  and  remained  for  some 
time,  and  then  returned  with  the  jailer  carrying  the 
cup  of  poison.  Socrates  said:  You,  my  good  friend, 


270 


PHAEDO 


who  are  experienced  in  these  matters,  shall  give  me 
directions  how  I  am  to  proceed.  The  man  answered : 
You  have  only  to  walk  about  until  your  legs  are  heavy ,  , ! 

and  then  to  lie  down,  and  the  poison  will  act.  At  the 
same  time  he  handed  the  cup  to  Socrates,  who  in  the 
easiest  and  gentlest  manner,  without  the  least  fear  or 
change  of  color  or  feature,  looking  at  the  man  with  all 
his  eyes,  Echecrates,  as  his  manner  was,  took  the  cup 
and  said :  What  do  you  say  about  making  a  libation  - 
out  of  this  cup  to  any  god?  May  I,  or  not?  .  The 
man  answered:  \Ye  only  prepare,  Socrates,  just  so 
much  as  we  deem  enough.  X  understand,  he  said,  jei 
I  may  and  must  pray  to  the  gods  to  prosper  my 
journey  from  this  to  that  other  world  — may  this 
then,  which  is  my  prayer,  he  granted  to  me.  Then  , 
holding  the  cup  to  his  lips,  quite  readily  and  cheer¬ 
fully  he  drank  off  the  poison.  And  hitherto  most  of  ; 
us  had  been  able  to  control  our  sorrow ;  but  now  when 
we  saw  him  drinking,  and  saw  too  that  he  had  finished  jf 
the  draught,  we  could  no  longer  forbear,  and  in  spite 
of  myself  my  own  tears  were  flowing  fast;  so  that  I 
covered  my  face  and  wept  over  myself,  for  ceitainlj  X  i 
was  not  weeping  over  him,  but  at  the  thought  of  mv 
own  calamity  in  having  lost  such  a  companion.  Nor 
was  I  the  first,  for  Crito,  when  he  found  himself  un¬ 
able  to  restrain  his  tears,  had  got  up  and  moved  away, 
and  I  followed;  and  at  that  moment,  Apollodoius, 
who  had  been  weeping  all  the  time,  broke  out  into  a 
loud  cry  which  made  cowards  of  us  all.  Socrates 
alone  retained  his  calmness:  What  is  this  strange 
outcry?  he  said.  I  sent  away  the  women  mainly  m 
order  that  they  might  not  offend  in  this  way,  tor  i 
have  heard  that  a  man  should  die  in  peace.  Be  quie 
then,  and  have  patience.  When  we  heard  that,  we 
were  ashamed,  and  refrained  our  teais,  and  e  w®  e 
about  until,  as  he  said,  his  legs  began  to  fail,  and  then 


PHAEDO 


271 


he  lay  on  his  back,  according  to  the  directions,  and 
the  man  who  gave  him  the  poison  now  and  then  looked 
at  his  feet  and  legs;  and  after  a  while  he  pressed  his 
foot  hard,  and  asked  him  if  he  could  feel;  and  he  said, 
No;  and  then  his  leg,  and  so  upwards  and  upwards, 
and  showed  us  that  he  was  cold  and  stiff.  And  he  felt 
then  himself  and  said:  When  the  poison  reaches  the 
heart,  that  will  be  the  end.  He  was  beginning  to  grow 
cold  about  the  groin,  when  he  uncovered  his  face,  for 
he  had  covered  himself  up,  and  said  (they  were  his 
last  words)  — he  said:  Crito,  I  owe  a  cock  to 
Asclepius;  will  you  remember  to  pay  the  debt?  The 
debt  shall  be  paid,  said  Crito;  is  there  anything  else? 
There  was  no  answer  to  this  question ;  but  in  a  minute 
or  two  a  movement  was  heard,  and  the  attendants  un¬ 
covered  him;  his  eyes  were  set,  and  Crito  closed  his 
eyes  and  mouth. 

Such  was  the  end,  Echecrates,  of  our  friend,  whom 
I  may  truly  call  the  wisest,  and  justest,  and  best  of 
all  men  whom  I  have  ever  known. 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


V. 


I 


INTRODUCTION 


Of  all  the  works  of  Plato  the  Symposium  is  the  most  perfect 
in  form,  and  may  be  truly  thought  to  contain  more  than  any 
commentator  has  ever  dreamed  of;  or,  as  Goethe  said  of  one 
of  his  own  writings,  more  than  the  author  himself  knew,  bor 
in  philosophy  as  in  prophecy  glimpses  of  the  future  may  often 
be  conveyed  in  words  which  could  hardly  have  been  understood 
or  interpreted  at  the  time  when  they  were  uttered.  More  than 
any  other  Platonic  work  the  Symposium  is  Greek  both  in  style 
and  subject,  having  a  beauty  “as  of  a  statue,"  while  the  com¬ 
panion  Dialogue  of  the  Phaedrus  is  marked  by  a  sort  of  Gothic 
irregularity.  More  too  than  in  any  other  part  of  his  writings, 
Plato  is  emancipated  from  former  philosophies.  The  genius  of 
Greek  art  seems  to  triumph  over  the  traditions  of  Pythagorean, 
Eleatic,  or  Megarian  systems,  and  “  the  old  quarrel  of  poetry 
and  philosophy  ”  has  at  least  a  superficial  reconcilement. 

An  unknown  person  who  had  heard  of  the  discourses  in  praise 
of  love  spoken  by  Socrates  and  others  at  the  banquet  of  Agathon, 
is  desirous  of  having  an  authentic  account  of  them,  which  he 
thinks  that  he  can  obtain  from  Apollodorus,  the  same  excitable, 
or  rather  “  mad  ”  friend  of  Socrates,  who  has  already  appeared 
in  the  Phaedo.  He  had  imagined  that  the  discourses  were  re¬ 
cent.  There  he  is  mistaken :  but  they  are  still  fresh  in  the  mem¬ 
ory  of  his  informant,  who  had  just  been  repeating  them  to  Glau- 
con,  and  is  quite  prepared  to  have  another  rehearsal  of  them 
in  a  walk  from  the  Piraeus  to  Athens.  He  had  not  indeed  been 
present  himself,  but  he  had  heard  them  from  the  best  authority. 
Aristodemus,  who  is  described  as  having  been  in  past  times  a 
sort  of  humble  but  inseparable  attendant  of  Socrates,  had  re¬ 
ported  them  to  him. 

The  narrative  which  he  had  heard  was  as  follows : 

Aristodemus  meeting  Socrates  in  holiday  attire,  is  invited  by 
him  to  a  banquet  at  the  house  of  Agathon,  who  had  been  sac¬ 
rificing  in  thanksgiving  for  his  tragic  victory  on  the  day  pre¬ 
vious.  But  no  sooner  has  he  entered  the  house  than  he  finds 
that  Socrates  is  missing  —  he  has  stayed  behind  in  a  fit  of  ab¬ 
straction,  and  does  not  appear  until  the  banquet  is  half  over. 

275 


276 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


Some  raillery  passes  between  him  and  yne  host,  and  then  the 
question  is  asked.  What  shall  they  do  about  drinking?  as  they 
had  been  all  well  drunk  on  the  day  before,  and  drinking  on  two 
successive  days  is  a  bad  thing.”  This  is  confirmed  by  the  author¬ 
ity  of  Eryximachus  the  physician,  who  further  proposes  that 
instead  of  listening  to  the  flute-girl  and  her  “  noise  ”  they  shall 
hold  discourses  in  honor  of  love,  one  after  another,  going  from 
left  to  right  as  they  are  sitting  at  the  table.  All  of  them  agree 
to  this,  and  Phaedrus,  who  is  the  “  father  ”  of  the  idea  which 
he  has  previously  communicated  to  Eryximachus,  begins  as 
follows :  — 

He  descants  first  of  all  upon  the  antiquity  of  love,  which  is 
proved  by  the  authority  of  the  poets,  and  then  upon  the  benefits 
which  he  gives  to  man.  The  greatest  of  these  is  the  sense  of 
honor  and  dishonor.  The  lover  is  ashamed  to  be  seen  bv  the 
beloved  doing  or  suffering  any  cowardly  or  mean  act.  And  a 
state  or  army  which  was  made  up  only  of  lovers  and  their  loves 
would  be  invincible.  For  love  will  convert  the  veriest  coward 
into  an  inspired  hero. 

And  there  have  been  true  loves  not  only  of  men  but  of  women 
also.  Such  was  the  love  of  Alcestis,  who  dared  to  die  for  her 
husband,  and  as  a  reward  was  allowed  to  come  again  from  the 
dead.  But  Orpheus,  the  cowardly  harper,  who  went  down  to 
Hades  alive,  that  he  might  bring  back  his  wife,  was  mocked  with 
an  apparition  only,  and  the  gods  afterwards  contrived  his  death 
as  a  punishment  of  his  impudence.  The  hero  Achilles  affords  an 
instance  of  similar  devotion;  for  he  was  willing  to  avenge  his 
lover  Patroclus,  although  he  knew  that  his  own  death  would 
immediately  follow:  and  the  gods,  who  honor  the  love  of  the 
beloved  above  that  of  the  lover,  rewarded  him,  and  sent  him  to 
the  islands  of  the  blest. 

Pausanias,  who  was  sitting  next,  then  takes  up  the  tale.  He 
says  that  Phaedrus  should  have  distinguished  the  heavenly  love 
from  the  earthly,  before  he  praised  either.  For  there  are  two 
loves,  as  there  are  two  Aphrodites  —  one  the  heavenly,  who  has 
no  mother  and  is  the  elder  and  wiser  goddess,  and  the  other,  the 
daughter  of  Zeus  and  Dione,  who  is  popular  and  common.  The 
first  of  the  two  loves  has  a  noble  purpose,  and  delights  only  in 
the  intelligent  nature  of  man,  and  is  faithful  to  the  end,  and  has 
no  shadow  of  wantonness  or  lust.  The  second  is  the  coarser  kind 
of  love,  which  is  a  love  of  the  body  rather  than  of  the  soul,  and 
is  apt  to  be  a  love  of  women  and  boys  as  well  as  of  men.  Now 
actions  vary  according  to  the  manner  of  their  performance ;  and 


INTRODUCTION 


277 


this  applies  to  love  as  wdl  as  to  every  other  sort  of  action. 
Moreover  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  about  the  propriety 
of  male  loves.  Some,  like  the  Boeotians,  approve  of  them;  oth¬ 
ers,  like  the  Ionians,  and  most  of  the  barbarians,  disapprove  of 
them ;  partly  because  they  are  aware  of  the  political  dangers 
which  ensue  from  them,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  instance  of  Har- 
modius  and  Aristogeiton.  At  Athens  and  Sparta  there  is  an 
apparent  contradiction  about  them.  For  at  times  they  are  en¬ 
couraged,  and  then  the  lover  is  allowed  to  play  all  sorts  of  fan- 
tastic  tricks;  he  may  swear  and  forswear  himself  (and  at 
lovers’  perjuries  they  say  Jove  laughs  )  ;  he  may  be  a  servant, 
and  lie  on  a  mat  at  the  door  of  his  love,  without  any  loss  of 
character;  but  there  are  also  times  when  elders  look  grave  and 
guard  their  young  relations,  and  personal  remarks  are  made. 
The  truth  is  that  some  of  these  loves  are  disgraceful  and  others 
honorable.  The  vulgar  love  of  the  body  which  takes  wings  and 
flies  away  when  the  bloom  of  youth  is  over,  is  disgraceful,  as  is 
also  the  interested  love  of  power  or  wealth;  but  the  love  of  the 
noble  mind  is  lasting.  The  lover  should  be  tested,  and  the  be¬ 
loved  should  not  be  too  ready  to  yield.  The  rule  in  our  country 
is  that  the  beloved  may  do  the  same  service  to  the  lover  in  the 
way  of  virtue  which  the  lover  may  do  to  him. 

This  voluntary  service  rendered  for  the  sake  of  virtue  and 
wisdom  is  permitted  among  us ;  and  when  these  two  customs 
one  the  love  of  youth,  the  other  the  practice  of  virtue  and  philos¬ 
ophy —  meet  in  one,  then  the  lovers  may  lawfully  unite.  Nor 
is  there  any  disgrace  to  a  disinterested  lover  in  being  deceived, 
but  the  interested  lover  is  doubly  disgraced,  for  if  he  loses  his 
love  he  loses  his  character;  whereas  the  noble  love  of  the  other 
remains  the  same,  although  the  object  of  his  love  is  unworthy: 
for  nothing  can  be  nobler  tlian  love  for  the  sake  of  virtue.  This 
is  that  love  of  the  heavenly  goddess  which  is  of  great  price  to 
individuals  and  cities,  making  them  work  together  for  their 
improvement. 

The  turn  of  Aristophanes  comes  next ;  but  he  has  the  hiccough, 
and  therefore  proposes  that  Eryximachus  the  physician  shall 
cure  him  or  speak  in  his  turn.  Eryximachus  is  ready  to  do  both, 
and  speaks  as  follows :  — 

He  agrees  with  Pausanias  in  maintaining  that  there  are  two 
kinds  of  love;  but  his  art  has  led  him  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  empire  of  this  double  love  extends  over  all  things,  and  is  to 
be  found  in  animals  and  plants  as  well  as  in  man.  In  the  human 
body  also  there  are  two  loves;  and  the  art  of  medicine  shows 


278 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


which  is  the  good  and  which  is  the  bid  love,  and  persuades  the 
body  to  accept  the  good  and  reject  the  bad,  and  reconciles  con¬ 
flicting  elements  and  makes  them  friends.  Every  art,  gymnastic 
and  husbandry  as  well  as  medicine,  is  the  reconciliation  of  oppo¬ 
sites  ;  and  this  is  what  Heracleitus  meant,  when  he  spoke  of  a 
harmony  of  opposites:  but  in  strictness  he  should  rather  have 
spoken  of  a  harmony  which  succeeds  opposites,  for  an  agree¬ 
ment  of  disagreements  there  can  not  be.  Music  too  is  concerned 
with  the  principles  of  love  in  their  application  to  harmony  and 
rhythm.  In  the  abstract,  all  is  simple,  and  we  are  not  troubled 
with  the  twofold  love;  but  when  they  are  applied  in  education 
with  their  accompaniments  of  song  and  metre,  then  the  discord 
begins.  Then  the  old  tale  has  to  be  repeated  of  fair  Urania 
and  the  coarse  Polyhymnia,  who  must  be  indulged  sparingly, 
just  as  in  my  own  art  of  medicine  care  must  be  taken  that  the 
taste  of  the  epicure  be  gratified  without  inflicting  upon  him  the 
attendant  penalty  of  disease. 

There  is  a  similar  harmony  or  disagreement  in  the  course  of 
the  seasons  and  in  the  relations  of  moist  and  dry,  hot  and  cold, 
hoar  frost  and  blight;  and  diseases  of  all  sorts  spring  from  the 
excesses  or  disorders  of  the  element  of  love.  The  knowledge 
of  this  in  relation  to  the  heavenly  bodies  is  termed  astronomy, 
and  in  relation  to  the  gods  is  called  divination.  For  divination 
is  the  peacemaker  of  gods  and  men,  and  works  by  a  knowledge 
of  the  tendencies  of  merely  human  loves  to  piety  and  impiety. 
Such  is  the  power  of  love;  and  that  love  which  is  just  and  tem¬ 
perate  has  the  greatest  power,  and  is  the  source  of  all  our  hap¬ 
piness  and  friendship  with  the  gods  and  with  one  another.  I 
dare  say  that  I  have  omitted  to  mention  many  things  which  you, 
Aristophanes,  may  supply,  as  I  perceive  that  you  are  cured  of 
the  hiccough. 

Aristophanes,  who  has  been  cured  of  the  hiccough,  now 
speaks :  — 

He  professes  to  open  a  new  vein  of  discourse,  in  which  he 
begins  by  treating  of  the  origin  of  human  nature.  The  sexes 
were  originally  three,  men,  women,  and  the  union  of  the  two; 
and  they  were  made  round,  having  four  hands,  four  feet,  two 
faces  on  a  round  neck,  and  the  rest  to  correspond.  Terrible  was 
their  strength  and  swiftness ;  and  they  were  essaying  to  scale 
heaven  and  attack  the  gods.  Doubt  reigned  in  the  celestial  coun¬ 
cils;  the  gods  were  divided  between  the  desire  of  quelling  the 
pride  of  man  and  the  fear  of  losing  the  sacrifices.  At  last  Zeus 
hit  upon  an  expedient.  Let  us  cut  them  in  two,  he  said;  then 


INTRODUCTION 


279 


they  will  only  have  half  their  strength,  and  we  shall  have  twice 
as  many  sacrifices.  He  spake,  and  split  them  as  you  might  split 
an  egg  with  an  hair;  and  when  this  was  done,  he  told  Apollo 
to  give  their  faces  a  twist  and  rearrange  their  persons,  taking 
out  the  wrinkles  and  tying  the  skin  in  a  knot  about  the  navel. 
The  two  halves  went  about  looking  for  one  another,  and  were 
ready  to  die  of  hunger  in  one  another’s  arms.  Then  Zeus  in¬ 
vented  an  adjustment  of  the  sexes,  which  enabled  them  to  marry 
and  go  their  way  to  the  business  of  life.  Now  the  characters 
of  men  differ  accordingly  as  they  are  derived  from  the  original 
man  or  the  original  woman,  or  the  original  man-woman.  Those 
who  come  from  the  man-woman  are  lascivious  and  adulterous; 
those  who  come  from  the  woman  form  female  attachments;  those 
who  are  a  section  of  the  male  follow  the  male  and  embrace  him, 
and  in  him  all  their  desires  centre.  They  can  not  tell  what  they 
want  of  one  another,  but  they  live  in  pure  and  manly  affection 
and  can  not  be  separated.  If  Hephaestus  were  to  come  to  them 
and  propose  that  they  should  be  melted  into  one  and  remain 
one  in  this  world  and  in  the  world  below,  they  would  acknowl¬ 
edge  that  this  was  the  very  expression  of  their  want.  For  love 
is  the  desire  of  the  whole,  and  the  pursuit  of  the  whole  is  called 
love.  There  was  a  time  when  the  two  sexes  were  only  one,  but 
now  God  has  halved  them,  —  much  as  the  Lacedaemonians  have 
cut  up  the  Arcadians,  —  and  if  they  don’t  behave  themselves  he 
will  quarter  them,  and  they  will  hop  about  with  half  a  nose  and 
face  in  basso  relievo.  Wherefore  let  us  exhort  all  men  to  piety, 
that  we  may  obtain  the  goods  of  which  love  is  the  author,  and 
be  reconciled  to  God,  and  find  our  own  true  loves,  which  rarely 
happens  in  this  world.  And  now  I  must  beg  you  not  to  suppose 
that  I  am  alluding  to  Pausanias  and  Agathon,  for  my  words 
refer  to  all  mankind  everywhere. 

Some  raillery  ensues  first  between  Aristophanes  and  Eryxi- 
machus  and  then  between  Agathon  and  Socrates,  which  threatens 
to  grow  into  an  argument.  This  is  speedily  repressed  by  Phae- 
drus,  who  reminds  the  disputants  of  their  tribute  to  the  god. 
Agathon’s  speech  follows. 

He  will  speak  of  the  god  first  and  then  of  his  gifts.  He  is 
the  fairest  and  blessedest  and  best  of  the  gods,  and  also  the 
youngest,  having  had  no  existence  in  the  old  days  of  Iapetus 
and  Cronos  when  the  gods  were  at  war.  The  things  that  were 
done  then  were  done  of  necessity  and  not  of  love.  For  love  is 
young  and  dwells  in  soft  places,  —  not  like  Ate  in  Homer,  walk¬ 
ing  on  the  skulls  of  men,  but  in  their  hearts  and  souls,  which  are 


280 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


soft  enough.  He  is  all  flexibility  and  grace,  and  his  habitation 
is  among  the  flowers,  and  he  can  not  do  or  suffer  wrong;  for 
all  men  serve  and  obey  him  of  their  own  free  will,  and  where 
there  is  love  there  is  obedience,  and  where  obedience  is,  there 
is  justice;  for  none  can  be  wronged  of  his  own  free  will.  And 
he  is  temperate  as  well  as  just,  for  he  is  the  ruler  of  the  desires, 
and  if  he  rules  them  he  must  be  temperate.  Also  he  is  coura¬ 
geous,  for  he  is  the  conqueror  of  the  lord  of  war.  And  he  is  wise 
too;  for  he  is  a  poet,  and  the  author  of  poesy  in  others.  He 
created  the  animals ;  he  is  the  inventor  of  the  arts ;  all  the  gods 
are  his  subjects;  he  is  the  fairest  and  best  in  himself,  and  the 
cause  of  what  is  fairest  and  best  in  others;  he  makes  men  to 
be  of  one  mind  at  a  banquet,  filling  them  with  affection  and 
emptying  them  of  disaffection;  the  pilot,  helper,  defender,  savior 
of  men,  in  whose  footsteps  let  every  man  follow,  chanting  a 
strain  of  love.  Such  is  the  discourse,  half  playful,  half  serious, 
which  I  dedicate  to  the  god. 

The  turn  of  Socrates  comes  next.  He  begins  by  remarking 
satirically  that  he  has  not  understood  the  terms  of  the  original 
agreement,  for  he  fancied  that  they  meant  to  speak  the  true 
praises  of  love,  but  now  he  finds  that  they  only  say  what  is  good 
of  him,  whether  true  or  false.  He  begs  to  be  absolved  from 
speaking  falsely,  but  he  is  willing  to  speak  the  truth,  and  pro¬ 
poses  to  begin  by  questioning  Agathon.  The  result  of  his  ques¬ 
tions  may  be  summed  up  as  follows :  — 

Love  is  of  something,  and  that  which  love  desires  is  not  that 
which  love  is  or  has ;  for  no  man  desires  that  which  he  is  or  has. 
And  love  is  of  the  beautiful,  and  therefore  love  has  not  the  beau¬ 
tiful.  And  the  beautiful  is  the  good,  and  therefore,  in  wanting 
and  desiring  the  beautiful,  love  also  wants  and  desires  the  good. 
Socrates  professes  to  have  put  the  same  questions  and  have 
obtained  the  same  answers  from  Diotima,  a  wise  woman  of  Man- 
tinea,  who,  like  Agathon,  had  spoken  first  of  love  and  then  of 
his  works.  Socrates,  like  Agathon,  had  told  her  that  love  is  a 
mighty  god  and  also  fair,  and  she  had  shown  him  in  return  that 
love  was  neither,  but  in  a  mean  between  fair  and  foul,  good  and 
evil,  and  not  a  god  at  all,  but  only  a  great  demon  or  intermediate 
being,  who  conveys  to  the  gods  the  prayers  of  men,  and  to  men 
the  commands  of  the  gods. 

Socrates  asks:  Who  are  his  father  and  mother?  To  this  Dio¬ 
tima  replies  that  he  is  the  son  of  Plenty  and  Poverty,  and  par¬ 
takes  of  the  nature  of  both,  and  is  full  and  starved  by  turns. 
Like  his  mother  he  is  poor  and  squalid,  lying  on  mats  at  doors; 


INTRODUCTION 


281 


like  his  father  he  is  full  of  arts  and  resources,  and  is  in  a  mean 
between  ignorance  and  knowledge.  And  in  this  he  resembles  the 
philosopher  who  is  also  in  a  mean  between  the  wise  and  the 
ignorant.  Such  is  the  nature  of  love,  who  is  not  to  be  confused 
with  the  beloved.! 

But  love  desires  the  beautiful;  and  then  arises  the  question, 
What  does  he  desire  of  the  beautiful?  He  desires,  of  course, 
the  possession  of  the  beautiful;  —  but  what  is  given  by  that? 
For  the  beautiful  let  us  substitute  the  good,  and  we  have  no 
difficulty  in  seeing  that  the  possession  of  the  good  is  happiness, 
and  that  love  is  the  desire  of  this.  But  the  meaning  of  the  term 
has  been  too  often  confined  to  one  sort  of  love,  whereas  love  is 
really  coextensive  with  the  good.  \  And  love  desires  not  only  the 
good,  but  the  everlasting  possession  of  the  good.  Why  then  is 
there  all  this  flutter  and  excitement  about  love?  Because  all 
men  and  women  at  a  certain  age  are  desirous  of  bringing  to 
the  birth.  And  love  is  not  of  beauty  only,  but  of  birth  in 
beauty;  this  is  the  principle  of  immortality  in  a  mortal  crea¬ 
ture.  And  when  beauty  approaches,  then  the  conceiving  power 
is  benign  and  diffuse,  but  when  foulness,  she  is  averted  and 
morose. 

But  why  again  does  this  extend  not  only  to  men  but  also  to 
animals?  Because  they  too  have  an  instinct  of  immortality. 
Even  in  the  same  individual  there  is  a  perpetual  succession  as 
well  of  the  parts  of  the  material  body  as  of  the  thoughts  and 
desires  of  the  mind ;  nay,  even  knowledge  comes  and  goes.  There 
is  no  sameness  of  existence,  but  the  new  mortality  is  always 
taking  the  place  of  the  old.  This  is  why  parents  love  their  chil¬ 
dren  —  for  the  sake  of  immortality ;  and  this  is  why  men  love 
the  immortality  of  fame.  For  the  creative  soul  creates  not  chil¬ 
dren,  but  conceptions  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  such  as  poets  and 
other  creators  have  invented.  And  the  noblest  creations  of  all 
are  those  of  legislators,  in  honor  of  whom  temples  have  been 
raised.  Who  would  not  sooner  have  these  children  of  the  mind 
than  the  ordinary  human  ones  ? 

I  will  now  initiate  you,  she  said,  into  the  greater  mysteries 
for  he  who  would  proceed  in  due  course  should  love  first  one  ( 
fair  form,  and  then  many,  and  learn  the  connection  of  them; 
and  from  beautiful  bodies  he  should  proceed  to  beautiful  minds, 
and  the  beauty  of  laws  and  institutions,  until  he  perceives  that 
all  beauty  is  of  one  kindred ;  and  from  institutions  he  should 
go  on  to  the  sciences,  until  at  last  the  vision  is  revealed  to  him 
of  a  single  science  of  universal  beauty,  and  then  he  will  behold 


282 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


the  everlasting  nature  which  is  the  cause  of  all,  and  will  be  near 
the  end.  In  the  contemplation  of  that  supreme  being  of  love 
he  will  be  purified  of  earthly  leaven,  and  will  behold  beauty,  not 
with  the  bodily  eye,  but  with  the  eye  of  the  mind,  and  will  bring 
forth  true  creations  of  virtue  and  wisdom,  and  be  the  friend  of 
God  and  heir  of  immortality. 

Such,  Phaedrus,  is  the  tale  which  I  heard  from  the  stranger 
of  Mantinea,  and  which  you  may  call  the  encomium  of  love,  or 
what  you  please. 

The  company  applaud  the  speech  of  Socrates,  and  Aristo¬ 
phanes  is  about  to  say  something,  when  suddenly  a  band  of  rev¬ 
ellers  breaks  into  the  court,  and  the  voice  of  Alcibiades  is  heard 
asking  for  Agathon.  He  is  led  in  drunk,  and  welcomed  by 
Agathon,  whom  he  has  come  to  crown  with  a  garland.  He  is 
placed  on  a  couch  at  his  side,  but  suddenly,  on  recognizing  Soc¬ 
rates,  he  starts  up,  and  a  sort  of  conflict  is  carried  on  between 
them,  which  Agathon  is  requested  to  appease.  Alcibiades  insists 
that  they  shall  drink,  and  has  a  large  wine-cooler  filled,  which 
he  first  empties  himself,  and  then  fills  again  and  passes  on  to 
Socrates.  He  is  informed  of  the  nature  of  the  entertainment; 
he  is  willing  to  join,  if  only  in  the  character  of  a  drunken  and 
disappointed  lover  he  may  be  allowed  to  sing  the  praises  of 
Socrates. 

He  begins  by  comparing  Socrates  first  to  the  masks  of  Silenus, 
which  have  images  of  the  gods  inside  them;  and,  secondly,  to 
Marsyas  the  flute-player.  For  Socrates  produces  the  same  effect 
with  the  voice  which  Marsyas  did  with  the  flute.  He  is  the  great 
speaker  and  enchanter  who  ravishes  the  souls  of  men,  the  con- 
vincer  of  hearts  too,  as  he  has  convinced  Alcibiades,  and  made 
him  ashamed  of  his  mean  and  miserable  life.  He  has  suffered 
agonies  from  him,  and  is  at  his  wit’s  end.  He  was  in  hopes  that 
Socrates  would  fall  in  love  with  him ;  this  as  he  thought  would 
give  him  a  wonderful  opportunity  of  receiving  lessons  of  wisdom. 
He  narrates  the  failure  of  his  design.  He  then  proceeds  to  men¬ 
tion  some  other  particulars  of  the  life  of  Socrates ;  how  they 
were  at  Potidaea  together,  where  Socrates  showed  his  superior 
powers  of  enduring  cold  and  fatigue;  how  on  one  occasion  he 
had  stood  for  an  entire  day  and  night  absorbed  in  reflection  amid 
the  wonder  of  the  spectators ;  how  on  another  occasion  he  had 
saved  Alcibiades’  life;  how  at  the  battle  of  Delium,  after  the 
defeat,  he  might  be  seen  stalking  about  like  a  pelican,  rolling  his 
eyes.  The  sum  of  all  is,  that  he  is  the  most  wonderful  of  human 
beings,  and  absolutely  unlike  any  one  but  a  satyr.  Like  the  satyr 


INTRODUCTION 


283 


in  his  language  too;  for  he  uses  the  commonest  words  as  the 
outward  mask  of  the  divinest  truths. 

When  Alcibiades  has  done  speaking,  a  dispute  begins  between 
him  and  Agathon  and  Socrates.  Socrates  piques  Alcibiades  by 
a  pretended  affection  for  Agathon.  Presently  another  band  of 
revellers  appears,  who  introduce  disorder  into  the  feast;  the 
sober  part  of  the  company,  Eryximachus,  Phaedrus,  and  others, 
withdraw;  and  Aristodemus,  the  follower  of  Socrates,  sleeps 
during  the  whole  of  a  long  winter’s  night.  When  he  wakes  at 
cockcrow  the  revellers  are  nearly  all  asleep.  Only  Socrates, 
Aristophanes,  and  Agathon  hold  out;  they  are  drinking  out  of 
a  large  goblet,  which  they  pass  round,  and  Socrates  is  explaining 
to  the  two  others,  who  are  half  asleep,  that  the  genius  of  tragedy 
is  the  same  as  that  of  comedy,  and  that  the  writer  of  tragedy 
ought  to  be  a  writer  of  comedy  also.  And  first  Aristophanes 
drops,  and  then,  as  the  day  is  dawning,  Agathon.  Socrates,  hav¬ 
ing  laid  them  to  rest,  goes  to  his  daily  avocations  until  the  eve¬ 
ning. 


If  it  be  true  that  there  are  more  things  in  the  Symposium  of 
Plato  than  any  commentator  has  dreamed  of,  it  is  also  true  that 
many  things  have  been  imagined  which  are  not  really  to  be  found 
there.  Some  writings  hardly  admit  of  a  more  distinct  interpreta¬ 
tion  than  a  musical  composition ;  and  every  reader  may  form  his 
own  accompaniment  of  thought  or  feeling  to  the  strain  which  he 
hears.  The  Symposium  of  Plato  is  a  work  of  this  character,  and 
hardly  admits  of  being  rendered  in  any  other  words  but  the  wri¬ 
ter’s  own.  There  are  so  many  half-lights  and  cross-lights,  so 
much  of  the  color  of  mythology,  and  of  the  manner  of  sophistry, 
adhering  —  rhetoric  and  poetry,  the  playful  and  the  serious,  are 
so  subtly  intermingled  in  it,  and  vestiges  of  old  philosophy  so 
curiously  blend  with  germs  of  future  knowledge,  that  agreement 
among  interpreters  is  not  to  be  expected.  The  expression  “  poema 
magis  putandum  quam  comicorum  poetarum,”  which  has  been 
applied  to  all  the  writings  of  Plato,  is  especially  applicable  to  the 
Symposium. 

The  power  of  love  is  represented  in  the  Symposium  as  running 
through  all  nature  and  all  being:  at  one  end  descending  to  ani¬ 
mals  and  plants,  and  attaining  to  the  highest  vision  of  truth  at 
the  other.  In  an  age  when  man  was  seeking  for  an  expression  of 
the  world  around  him,  the  conception  of  love  greatly  affected 
him.  One  of  the  first  distinctions  of  language  and  of  mythology 


284 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


was  that  of  gender;  and  at  a  later  period  the  ancient  physicist, 
anticipating  modern  science,  saw,  or  thought  that  he  saw,  a  sex 
in  plants;  there  were  elective  affinities  among  the  elements,  mar¬ 
riages  of  earth  and  heaven.  Love  became  a  mythic  personage, 
whom  philosophy,  borrowing  from  poetry,  converted  into  an  effi¬ 
cient  cause  of  creation.  As  of  number  and  figure,  the  traces  of 
the  existence  of  love  were  everywhere  discerned;  and  in  the 
Pythagorean  list  of  opposites  male  and  female  were  ranged  side 
by  side  with  odd  and  even,  finite  and  infinite. 

But  Plato  seems  also  to  be  aware  that  there  is  a  mystery  of 
love  not  only  in  nature,  but  in  man,  extending  far  beyond  the 
mere  immediate  relation  of  the  sexes.  He  is  conscious  that  the 
highest  and  noblest  things  in  the  world  are  not  easily  severed 
from  the  sensual  desires,  or  may  even  be  regarded  as  a  spiritual¬ 
ized  form  of  them.  We  may  observe  that  Socrates  himself  is  not 
represented  as  originally  unimpassioned,  but  as  one  who  has 
overcome  his  passions ;  the  secret  of  his  power  over  others  partly 
lies  in  his  passionate  but  self-controlled  nature.  Love  is  with 
Plato  not  merely  the  feeling  usually  so  called,  but  the  mystical 
contemplation  of  the  beautiful  and  the  good.  The  same  passion 
which  may  wallow  in  the  mire  is  capable  of  rising  to  the  highest 
summit  —  of  penetrating  to  the  inmost  secret  of  philosophy. 
The  unity  of  knowledge,  the  consistency  of  the  warring  elements 
of  the  world,  the  enthusiasm  of  knowledge  when  first  beaming 
upon  mankind,  the  relativity  of  ideas  to  the  human  mind,  and  of 
the  human  mind  to  ideas,  are  all  included,  consciously  or  uncon¬ 
sciously,  in  Plato’s  doctrine  of  love. 

The  successive  speeches  in  praise  of  love  are  all  of  them  char¬ 
acteristic  of  the  speakers,  and  contribute  in  various  degrees  to 
the  final  result;  they  are  all  designed  to  prepare  the  way  for 
Socrates,  who  gathers  up  the  threads  anew,  and  skims  the  high¬ 
est  points  of  each  of  them.  But  they  are  not  to  be  regarded  as 
the  stages  of  an  idea,  rising  above  one  another  to  a  climax.  They 
are  fanciful,  partly  facetious  performances,  “  yet  also  having  a 
certain  degree  of  seriousness,”  which  the  successive  speakers 
dedicate  to  the  god.  All  of  them  are  rhetorical  and  poetical 
rather  than  dialectical;  they  do  not  aim  at  truth,  but  only  at 
appearance.  When  the  turn  of  Socrates  comes  round,  he  can  not 
be  allowed  to  disturb  the  arrangement,  and  therefore  he  throws 
his  argument  into  the  form  of  a  speech.  And  on  the  occasion  of 
a  banquet,  good  manners  would  not  allow  him  to  win  a  victory 
either  over  his  host  or  any  of  the  guests.  The  advantage  which 
lie  gains  over  Agathon  is  ingeniously  represented  as  having  been 


INTRODUCTION 


285 


already  gained  over  himself  by  Diotima.  At  the  same  time  he 
maintains  his  own  profession  of  ignorance. 

The  speeches  are  attested  to  us  by  the  very  best  authority. 
The  madman  Apollodorus,  who  for  three  years  past  has  made  a 
daily  study  of  the  actions  of  Socrates  —  to  whom  the  world  is 
summed  up  in  the  words  “  Great  is  Socrates  ”  —  he  has  heard 
them  from  another  “  madman  ”  who  was  the  shadow  of  Socrates 
in  days  of  old,  like  him  going  about  barefooted,  and  who  had 
been  present  at  the  time.  Would  you  desire  better  witness?  We 
may  observe,  by  the  way,  (1)  how  the  very  appearance  of  Aris- 
todemus  by  himself  is  a  sufficient  indication  to  Agathon  that 
Socrates  has  been  left  behind;  also,  (2)  how  the  courtesy  of 
Agathon  anticipates  the  excuse  which  Socrates  was  to  have  made 
on  Aristodemus’  behalf  for  coming  uninvited;  (3)  how  the  story 
of  the  fit  or  trance  of  Socrates  is  confirmed  by  the  mention  which 
Alcibiades  makes  of  a  similar  fit  of  abstraction  occurring  when 
he  was  serving  with  the  army  at  Potidaea;  like  (4)  the  drinking 
powers  of  Socrates  and  his  love  of  the  fair,  which  receive  a 
similar  attestation  in  the  concluding  scene ;  or  the  attachment  of 
Aristodemus,  who  is  not  forgotten  when  Socrates  takes  his  de¬ 
parture.  (5)  We  may  notice  the  manner  in  which  Socrates  him¬ 
self  regards  the  first  five  speeches,  not  as  true,  but  as  fanciful 
and  exaggerated  encomiums  of  the  god  Love;  (6)  the  ruling 
passion  of  Socrates  for  dialectics,  who  will  argue  with  Agathon 
instead  of  making  a  speech,  and  will  only  speak  at  all  upon  the 
condition  that  he  is  allowed  to  speak  the  truth.  We  may  note 
also  (7)  the  characteristic  Platonic  remark  which  occurs  in  the 
speech  of  Eryximachus,  that  “  confusion  first  begins  in  the  con¬ 
crete;  ”  and  the  touch  of  Socratic  irony,  (8)  which  admits  of  a 
wide  application  and  reveals  a  deep  insight  into  the  world;  that 
in  speaking  of  holy  things  and  persons  there  is  a  general  under¬ 
standing  that  you  should  praise  them,  not  that  you  should  speak 
the  truth  of  them  —  this  is  the  sort  of  praise  which  Socrates  is 
unable  to  give.  Lastly  we  may  remark  that  the  banquet  is  a  real 
banquet  after  all,  at  which  love  is  the  theme  of  discourse,  and 
huge  quantities  of  wine  are  drunk. 

The  discourse  of  Phaedrus  is  half-mythical,  half-ethical;  and 
he  himself,  true  to  the  character  which  is  given  him  in  the  Dia¬ 
logue  which  bears  his  name,  is  half-sophist,  half-enthusiast. 
He  is  the  critic  of  poetry  also,  who  compares  Homer  and  Aeschy¬ 
lus  in  the  insipid  and  irrational  manner  of  the  schools  of  the 
day,  characteristically  reasoning  about  the  probability  of  matters 
which  do  not  admit  of  reasoning.  The  age  of  love,  the  great 


286 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


blessing  of  having  a  lover,  the  incentive  which  love  is  to  daring 
deeds,  the  examples  of  Alcestis  and  Achilles,  are  the  chief  themes 
of  his  discourse.  The  love  of  women  is  regarded  by  him  as 
almost  on  an  equality  with  that  of  men;  and  he  takes  occasion 
to  remark  that  the  lover  has  a  diviner  being,  and  that  therefore 
the  gods  favor  the  return  of  love  which  is  made  to  him  more  than 
the  original  sentiment  of  the  lover. 

There  is  something  of  a  sophistical  ring  in  the  speech  of  Phae- 
drus,  which  recalls  the  first  speech  in  imitation  of  Lysias,  occur¬ 
ring  in  the  Dialogue  called  the  Phaedrus.  This  is  still  more 
marked  in  the  speech  of  Pausanias  which  follows;  and  which 
is  at  once  hyperlogical  in  form  and  also  extremely  confused  and 
pedantic.  Plato  is  attacking  the  logical  feebleness  of  the  soph¬ 
ists  and  rhetoricians,  through  their  pupils ;  of  course,  “  playing 
both  sides  of  the  game,”  as  in  the  Phaedrus;  but  it  is  not  neces¬ 
sary  in  order  to  understand  him  that  we  should  discuss  the  fair¬ 
ness  of  his  mode  of  proceeding.  The  love  of  Pausanias  for 
Agathon  has  already  been  touched  upon  in  the  Protagoras,  and 
is  alluded  to  by  Aristophanes.  Hence  he  is  naturally  the  up¬ 
holder  of  male  loves,  which,  like  all  the  other  affections  or  actions 
of  men,  he  regards  as  varying  according  to  the  manner  of  their 
performance;  thus  the  question  of  morals  is  converted  into  one 
of  manners.  Like  the  sophists  and  like  Plato  himself,  though 
in  a  different  sense,  he  begins  his  discussion  by  an  appeal  to 
mythology,  and  distinguishes  between  the  elder  and  younger 
love.  The  value  which  he  attributes  to  such  loves  as  motives 
to  virtue  and  philosophy  is  greatly  at  variance  with  modern  and 
Christian  notions,  but  is  in  accordance  with  Hellenic  sentiment. 
For  it  is  impossible  to  deny  that  some  of  the  best  and  greatest 
of  the  Greeks  indulged  in  attachments,  which  Plato  in  the  Laws, 
no  less  than  the  universal  opinion  of  Christendom,  has  stigma¬ 
tized  as  unnatural.  Pausanias  is  very  earnest  in  insisting  on  the 
innocence  of  such  loves,  when  pursued  in  a  right  spirit;  and  he  i 
speaks  of  them  as  generally  approved  of  among  the  Hellenes  and 
disapproved  bv  the  barbarians,  the  latter  for  the  sophistical  rea-  i 
son  that  they  are  inimical  to  tyrants.  The  speech  as  a  whole 
is  “  more  words  than  matter,”  such  as  might  certainly  have  been  I 
composed  by  a  pupil  of  Lysias  and  Prodicus,  although  there  is 
no  hint  given  that  Plato  is  designing  to  parody  them. 

Plato  transposes  the  two  next  speeches,  as  in  the  Republic  he 
would  transpose  the  virtues  and  the  mathematical  sciences.  This 
is  done  partly  to  avoid  monotony,  partly  for  the  sake  of  making 
Aristophanes  “  the  cause  of  wit  in  others,  and  also  in  order 


INTRODUCTION 


287 


to  bring  the  comic  and  tragic  poet  into  juxtaposition,  as  if  by 
accident.  A  suitable  “  expectation  ”  of  Aristophanes  is  raised  by 
the  ludicrous  circumstance  of  his  having  the  hiccough,  which  is 
appropriately  cured  by  his  substitute,  the  physician  Eryximachus. 
To  Eryximachus  Love  is  the  good  physician;  he  sees  everything 
as  an  intelligent  physicist,  and,  like  many  professors  of  his  art 
in  modern  times,  attempts  to  reduce  the  moral  to  the  physical; 
or  recognizes  one  law  of  love  which  pervades  them  both.  There 
are  loves  and  strifes  of  the  body  as  well  as  of  the  mind.  Like 
Hippocrates  the  Asclepiad,  he  is  a  disciple  of  Heracleitus,  whose 
conception  of  the  harmony  of  opposites  he  explains  in  a  new  way 
as  the  harmony  after  discord ;  to  his  common  sense,  as  to  that 
of  many  moderns  as  well  as  ancients,  the  identity  of  contradic¬ 
tories  is  an  absurdity.  His  notion  of  love  may  be  summed  up 
as  the  harmony  of  man  with  himself  in  soul  as  well  as  body, 
and  of  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  with  one  another. 

Aristophanes  is  ready  to  laugh  and  make  laugh  before  he 
opens  his  mouth,  just  as  Socrates,  true  to  his  character,  is  ready 
to  argue  before  he  begins  to  speak.  He  expresses  the  very  gen¬ 
ius  of  the  old  comedy,  its  coarse  and  forcible  imagery,  and  the 
license  of  its  language  in  speaking  about  the  gods.  He  has  no 
sophistical  notions  about  love,  which  is  brought  back  by  him  to 
its  common-sense  meaning  of  love  between  intelligent  beings. 
His  account  of  the  origin  of  the  sexes  has  the  greatest  (comic) 
probability  and  verisimilitude.  Nothing  in  Aristophanes  is  more 
truly  Aristophanic  than  the  description  of  the  human  monster 
whirling  round  on  four  arms  and  four  legs,  eight  in  all,  with 
incredible  rapidity.  Yet  there  is  a  mixture  of  earnestness  in  this 
jest;  three  serious  principles  seem  to  be  insinuated:  —  first,  that 
man  can  not  exist  in  isolation;  he  must  be  reunited  if  he  is  to 
be  perfected ;  secondly,  that  love  is  the  mediator  and  reconciler 
of  poor,  divided  human  nature:  thirdly,  that  the  loves  of  this 
world  are  an  indistinct  anticipation  of  an  ideal  union  which  is 
not  yet  realized. 

The  speech  of  Agathon  is  conceived  in  a  higher  strain,  and 
receives  the  real,  if  half-ironical,  approval  of  Socrates.  It  is 
the  speech  of  the  tragic  poet  and  a  sort  of  poem,  like  tragedy, 
moving  among  the  gods  of  Olympus,  and  not  among  the  elder  or 
Orphic  deities.  In  the  idea  of  the  antiquity  of  love  he  can  not 
agree ;  love  is  not  of  the  old  time,  but  present  and  youthful  ever. 
The  speech  may  be  compared  with  that  speech  of  Socrates  in 
the  Phaedrus,  in  which  he  describes  himself  as  talking  dithy¬ 
rambs.  It  is  at  once  a  preparation  for  Socrates  and  a  foil  to 


288 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


him.  The  rhetoric  of  Agathon  elevates  the  soul  to  “  sunlit 
heights/’  but  at  the  same  time  contrasts  with  the  natural  and 
necessary  eloquence  of  Socrates.  Agathon  contributes  the  dis¬ 
tinction  between  love  and  the  works  of  love,  and  also  hints  inci¬ 
dentally  that  love  is  always  of  beauty,  which  Socrates  afterwards 
elevates  into  a  principle.  While  the  consciousness  of  discord  is 
stronger  in  the  comic  poet  Aristophanes,  Agathon,  the  tragic 
poet,  has  a  deeper  sense  of  harmony  and  reconciliation,  and  * 
speaks  of  Love  as  the  creator  and  artist. 

All  the  earlier  speeches  embody  common  opinions  colored  with 
a  tinge  of  philosophy.  They  furnish  the  material  out  of  which 
Socrates  proceeds  to  form  his  discourse,  starting,  as  in  other 
places,  from  mythology  and  the  opinions  of  men.  From  Phae- 
drus  he  takes  the  thought  that  love  is  stronger  than  death ;  from 
Pausanias,  that  the  true  love  is  akin  to  intellect  and  political 
activity ;  from  Eryximachus,  that  love  is  a  universal  phenomenon 
and  the  great  power  of  nature;  from  Aristophanes,  that  love  is 
the  child  of  want,  and  is  not  merely  the  love  of  the  congenial 
or  of  the  whole,  but  (as  he  adds)  of  the  good;  from  Agathon, 
that  love  is  of  beauty  —  not  however  of  beauty  only,  but  of  birth 
of  beauty. 

The  speech  of  the  day  begins  with  a  short  argument  which 
overthrows  not  only  Agathon  but  all  of  them,  by  the  help  of  a 
distinction  which  has  escaped  them.  Extravagant  praises  have 
been  ascribed  to  Love  as  the  author  of  every  good;  no  sort  of 
encomium  was  too  high  for  him,  whether  deserved  and  true  or 
not.  But  Socrates  has  no  talent  for  speaking  anything  but  the 
truth,  and  if  he  is  to  speak  the  truth  of  Love  he  must  honestly 
confess  that  he  is  not  a  good  at  all:  for  love  is  of  the  good,  and 
no  man  can  desire  that  which  he  has.  This  piece  of  dialectics 
is  ascribed  to  Diotima,  the  wise  woman  of  Mantineia,  who  has 
already  urged  upon  Socrates  the  argument  which  he  urges 
against  Agathon. 

But  Diotima,  the  prophetess  of  Mantineia,  whose  sacred  and 
superhuman  character  raises  her  above  the  ordinary  proprieties 
of  women,  has  taught  Socrates  far  more  than  this  about  the  art 
and  mystery  of  love.  She  has  taught  him  that  love  is  another 
aspect  of  philosophy*  The  same  want  in  the  human  soul  which 
is  satisfied  in  the  vulgar  by  the  procreation  of  children,  may 
become  the  highest  aspiration  of  intellectual  desire.  As  the 
Christian  might  speak  of  hungering  and  thirsting  after  right¬ 
eousness;  or  of  divine  loves  under  the  figure  of  human  (“  This 
is  a  great  mystery,  but  I  speak  concerning  Christ  and  the 


INTRODUCTION 


289 


church  ”)  ;  as  the  mediaeval  saint  might  speak  of  the  “  fruitio 
Dei,”  so  the  absorption  and  annihilation  of  all  other  loves  and 
desires  in  the  love  of  knowledge  is  a  feeling  that  was  at  least 
intelligible  to  the  Greek  of  the  fifth  century  before  Christ.  To 
most  men  reason  and  passion  appear  to  be  antagonistic  both  in 
idea  and  fact.  The  union  of  the  greatest  comprehension  of 
knowledge  and  the  burning  intensity  of  love  is  a  contradiction 
in  nature,  which  may  have  existed  in  a  far-off  primeval  age  in 
the  mind  of  some  Hebrew  prophet  or  other  Eastern  sage,  but 
has  now  become  an  imagination  only.  Yet  this  “  passion  of  the 
reason  ”  is  the  theme  of  the  Symposium  of  Plato.  And  as  there 
is  no  impossibility  in  supposing  that  “  one  king,  or  son  of  a 
king,  may  be  a  philosopher,”  so  also  there  is  a  probability  that 
there  may  be  some  few  —  perhaps  one  or  two  in  a  whole  gen¬ 
eration  —  in  whom  the  light  of  truth  may  not  lack  the  warmth 
of  desire.  And  if  there  be  such  natures,  no  one  will  be  disposed 
to  deny  that  “  from  them  flow  most  of  the  benefits  of  individuals 
and  states.” 

Yet  there  is  a  higher  region  in  which  love  is  not  only  felt,  but 
satisfied,  in  the  perfect  beauty  of  eternal  knowledge,  beginning 
with  the  beauty  of  earthly  things,  and  at  last  by  regular  steps 
reaching  a  beauty  in  which  all  existence  is  seen  harmonious  and 
one.  The  limited  affection  is  enlarged,  and  enabled  to  behold 
the  ideal  beauty  of  all  things.  This  ideal  beauty  of  the  Sym¬ 
posium  is  the  ideal  good  of  the  Republic;  regarded  not  with  the 
eye  of  knowledge,  but  of  faith  and  desire.  The  one  seems  to 
say  to  us  “  the  idea  is  love,”  the  other  “  the  idea  is  truth.” 
In  both  the  lover  of  wisdom  is  the  “  spectator  of  all  time  and  all 
existence.”  This  is  a  sort  of  “  mystery  ”  in  which  Plato  also 
obscurely  intimates  the  interpenetration  of  the  moral  and  intel¬ 
lectual  faculties. 

The  divine  image  of  beauty  that  resides  within  Socrates  has 
been  revealed;  the  Silenus  mask,  or  outward  man,  has  now  to 
be  exhibited.  The  description  of  Socrates  is  placed  side  by  side 
with  the  speech  of  Socrates;  one  is  the  complement  of  the  other. 
At  the  height  of  divine  inspiration,  when  the  force  of  nature 
can  no  further  go,  as  if  by  way  of  contrast  to  this  extreme  ideal¬ 
ism  or  mysticism,  Alcibiades,  accompanied  by  a  troop  of  revellers, 
staggers  in,  and  in  his  drunken  state  is  able  to  tell  of  things 
which  he  would  have  been  ashamed  to  mention,  if  he  had  been 
sober.  The  state  of  his  affections  towards  Socrates,  unintelli¬ 
gible  to  us  and  perverted  as  they  appear,  is  a  perfect  illustration 
of  the  power  ascribed  to  the  loves  of  men  in  the  speech  of  Pau- 


290 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


sanias.  Indeed,  he  is  confident  that  the  whole  company  will 
sympathize  with  him;  several  of  them  have  been  in  love  with 
Socrates,  and,  like  himself,  have  been  deceived  by  him.  The 
singular  part  of  this  confession  is  the  combination  of  the  most 
degrading  passion  with  the  desire  of  virtue  and  improvement. 
The  pangs  of  philosophy  and  of  love  work  together  on  this  aban¬ 
doned  soul.  Such  an  union  is  not  wholly  untrue  to  human  nature, 
in  which  there  is  a  mixture  of  good  and  evil,  far  surpassing  in 
subtlety  any  powers  of  human  imagination  to  conceive.  The 
Platonic  Socrates  (for  of  the  real  Socrates  this  may  be  doubted: 
cp.  Xenophon’s  Mem.  I.  2,  29,  30)  does  not  appear  to  regard 
the  greatest  evil  of  Greek  life  as  matter  of  abhorrence,  but  as 
a  subject  for  irony,  and  is  far  from  resenting  the  imputation  of 
such  attachments.  Nor  does  Plato  feel  any  repugnance,  such 
as  would  be  felt  in  modern  times,  in  bringing  his  great  master 
and  hero  into  connection  with  nameless  crimes.  He  is  contented 
with  representing  him  as  a  sort  of  saint,  who  has  won  “  the 
Olympian  victory  ”  over  the  temptations  of  human  nature.  The 
fault  of  taste,  which  to  us  appears  glaring,  and  which  was 
recognized  by  the  Greeks  of  a  later  age,  was  not  perceived  by 
Plato  himself.  Still  more  surprising  is  the  fact  itself,  that  the 
elevation  of  sentiment,  which  is  regarded  by  Plato  as  the  first 
step  in  the  upward  progress  of  the  philosopher,  is  aroused  not 
by  female  beauty,  but  by  the  beauty  of  youth,  which  alone  seems 
to  have  been  capable  of  inspiring  the  modern  feeling  of  romance 
in  the  Greek  mind.  The  passion  which  was  unsatisfied  by  the 
love  of  women,  took  the  spurious  form  of  an  enthusiasm  for  the 
ideal  of  beauty  —  a  worship  as  of  some  godlike  image  of  an 
Apollo  or  Antinous.  Thus  wide  is  the  gulf  which  separates  a 
portion  of  Hellenic  sentiment  in  the  age  of  Plato  (for  about  the 
opinion  of  Plato  himself,  as  of  Socrates,  respecting  these  male 
loves  we  are  in  the  same  perplexity  which  he  attributes  to  his 
countrymen,)  not  only  from  Christian,  but  from  Homeric  feeling. 

The  character  here  attributed  to  Alcibiades  is  hardly  less 
remarkable  than  that  of  Socrates.  He  is  the  impersonation  of 
lawlessness  —  “  the  lion’s  whelp,  who  ought  not  to  be  reared  in 
the  city,’’  yet  not  without  a  certain  generosity  which  gained  the 
hearts  of  men,  —  strangely  fascinated  by  Socrates,  and  pos¬ 
sessed  of  a  genius  which  might  have  been  either  the  destruction 
or  salvation  of  Athens.  The  dramatic  interest  of  the  character 
is  heightened  by  the  recollection  of  his  after  history.  He  seems 
to  have  been  present  to  the  mind  of  Plato  in  the  description  of 
the  democratic  man  of  the  Republic. 


INTRODUCTION 


291 


There  is  no  criterion  of  the  date  of  the  Symposium,  except 
that  which  is  furnished  by  the  allusion  to  the  division  of  Arcadia 
after  the  destruction  of  Mantineia.  This  took  place  in  the  year 
b.  c.  384,  which  is  the  forty-fourth  year  of  Plato’s  life.  The 
Symposium  can  not  therefore  be  regarded  as  a  youthful  work 
As  Mantineia  was  restored  in  the  year  369,  the  composition  of 
the  Dialogue  will  probably  fall  between  384  and  369-  Whether 
the  recollection  of  the  event  is  more  likely  to  have  been  renewed 
at  the  destruction  or  restoration  of  the  city,  rather  than  at  some 
intermediate  period,  is  a  consideration  not  worth  raising. 

The  Symposium  is  closely  connected  with  the  Phaedrus  both 
in  style  and  matter.  They  are  the  only  Dialogues  of  Plato  in 
which  the  subject  of  love  is  considered  at  length.  In  both  phi¬ 
losophy  is  regarded  as  a  sort  of  enthusiasm  or  madness.  Philos^ 
ophy  in  the  Phaedo  might  also  be  described  as  “  dying  for  love.” 
But  while  the  Phaedo  and  Phaedrus  look  backwards  and  for¬ 
wards  to  past  and  future  states  of  existence,  the  Symposium  is 
bounded  by  this  world.  The  intellectual  and  ethical  are  held 
in  solution  with  the  physical.  Philosophy  is  not  death,  or  ab¬ 
straction  from  life:  in  and  through  the  sensible  world  we  rise 
to  the  ideal.  Nor  is  the  eternity  of  knowledge  asserted;  but 
only  the  eternal  succession  of  knowledge.  The  immortality  is 
not  personal,  but  an  immortality  of  the  race.  The  Lysis  may 
be  compared  as  containing  the  first  suggestion  of  the  questions 

finally  answered  in  the  speech  of  Socrates. 

The  Symposium  of  Xenophon,  in  which  Socrates  describes 
himself  as  a  pander,  and  also  discourses  of  the  difference  between 
sensual  and  sentimental  love,  likewise  offers  several  interesting 
points  of  comparison.  But  the  suspicion  which  hangs  over  other 
writings  of  Xenephon,  and  the  numerous  minute  references  to  the 
Phaedrus  and  Symposium,  throw  a  doubt  on  the  genuineness 
of  the  work.  The  Symposium  of  Xenophon,  if  written  by  him 
at  all,  would  certainly  show  that  he  wrote  against  Plato,  and 
was  acquainted  with  his  works.  Of  this  there  is  no  trace  in  the 
Memorabilia.  Such  a  rivalry  is  more  characteristic  of  an  imi¬ 
tator  than  of  an  original  writer.  This  (so-called)  Symposium 
of  Xenophon  may  therefore  have  no  more  title  to  be  regarded 
as  genuine  than  the  confessedly  spurious  Apology. 

There  are  no  means  of  determining  the  relative  order  in  time 
of  the  Phaedo,  Symposium,  Phaedrus.  The  order  which  has  been 
adopted  in  this  translation  rests  on  no  other  principle  than  the 
desire  to  bring  together  in  a  series  the  memorials  of  the  life  of 

Socrates. 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


PERSONS  OF  THE  DIALOGUE 


Apollodorus,  who  repeats  to  his 
companion  the  dialogue  which 
he  had  heard  from  Aristodemus, 
and  had  already  once  narrated 
to  Glaucon. 

Phaedrus. 

Pausanias. 


Eryximachus. 

Aristophanes. 

Agathon. 

Socrates. 

Alcibiades. 

A  troop  of  Revellers. 


Scene  :  —  The  House  of  Agathon. 


I  believe  that  I  am  prepared  with  an  answer.  For 
the  day  before  yesterday  I  was  coming  from  my  own 
home  at  Phalerum  to  the  city,  and  one  of  my  acquaint¬ 
ance,  who  had  caught  a  sight  of  the  back  of  me  at  a 
distance,  in  merry  mood  commanded  me  to  halt: 
Apollodorus,  he  cried,  O  thou  man  of  Phalerum,  halt! 
So  I  did  as  I  was  bid ;  and  then  he  said,  I  was  looking 
for  you,  Apollodorus,  only  just  now,  that  I  might 
hear  about  the  discourses  in  praise  of  love,  which 
were  delivered  by  Socrates,  Alcibiades,  and  others, 
at  Agathon’s  supper.  Phoenix,  the  son  of  Philip, 
told  another  person  who  told  me  of  them,  and  he  said 
that  you  knew ;  but  he  was  himself  very  indistinct,  and 
I  wish  that  you  would  give  me  an  account  of 
them.  Who  hut  you  should  be  the  reporter  of  the 
words  of  your  friend?  And  first  tell  me,  he  said,  were 

you  present  at  this  meeting? 

Your  informant,  Glaucon,  I  said,  must  have  been 
very  indistinct  indeed,  if  you  imagine  that  the  occasion 
was  recent,  or  that  I  could  have  been  present. 

293 


294 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


Why,  yes,  he  replied,  that  was  my  impression. 

But  how  is  that  possible?  I  said.  For  Agathon 
has  not  been  in  Athens  for  many  years,  (are  you 
aware  of  that?)  and  my  acquaintance  with  Socrates, 
of  whose  every  action  and  word  I  now  make  a  daily 
study,  is  not  as  yet  of  three  years’  standing.  I  used 
to  be  running  about  the  world,  thinking  that  I  was 
doing  something,  and  would  have  done  anything 
rather  than  be  a  philosopher;  I  was  almost  as  miser¬ 
able  as  you  are  now. 

Well,  he  said,  cease  from  jesting,  and  tell  me  when 
the  meeting  occurred. 

In  our  boyhood,  I  replied,  when  Agathon  won  the 
prize  with  his  first  tragedy,  on  the  day  after  that  on 
which  he  and  his  chorus  offered  the  sacrifice  of  vic¬ 
tory. 

That  is  a  long  while  ago,  he  said;  and  who  told 
you  —  did  Socrates? 

No  indeed,  I  replied,  but  the  same  person  who  told 
Phoenix;  —  he  was  a  little  fellow,  who  never  wore 
any  shoes,  Aristodemus,  of  the  deme  of  Cydathe- 
naeum.  He  had  been  at  this  feast;  and  I  think  that 
there  was  no  one  in  those  days  who  was  a  more  de¬ 
voted  admirer  of  Socrates.  Moreover,  I  asked  Soc¬ 
rates  about  the  truth  of  some  parts  of  his  narrative, 
and  he  confirmed  them.  Then,  said  Glaucon,  let  us 
have  the  tale  over  again;  is  not  the  road  to  Athens 
made  for  conversation?  And  so  we  walked,  and 
talked  of  the  discourses  on  love;  and  therefore,  as  I 
said  at  first,  I  am  prepared  with  an  answer,  and  will 
have  another  rehearsal,  if  you  like.  For  I  love  to 
speak  or  to  hear  others  speak  of  philosophy;  there  is 
the  greatest  pleasure  in  that,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
profit.  But  when  I  hear  any  other  discourses,  espe¬ 
cially  those  of  you  rich  men  and  traders,  they  are  irk¬ 
some  to  me ;  and  I  pity  you  who  are  my  companions, 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


295 


because  you  always  think  that  you  are  hard  at  work 
when  really  you  are  idling.  And  I  dare  say  that  you 
pity  me  in  return,  whom  you  regard  as  an  unfortunate 
wight,  which  I  perhaps  am.  But  I  certainly  know  of 
you  what  you  only  think  of  me  —  there  is  the  differ¬ 
ence. 

Companion.  I  see,  Apollodorus,  that  you  are  just 
the  same  —  always  speaking  evil  of  yourself,  and  of 
others;  and  I  do  believe  that  you  pity  all  mankind, 
beginning  with  yourself  and  including  everybody 
else  with  the  exception  of  Socrates,  true  in  this  to 
your  old  name,  which,  however  deserved,  I  know  not 
how  you  acquired,  of  Apollodorus  the  madman;  for 
your  humor  is  always  to  be  out  of  humor  with  your¬ 
self  and  with  everybody  except  Socrates. 

Apollodorus.  Yes,  friend,  and  I  am  proved  to  be 
mad,  and  out  of  my  wits,  because  I  have  these  notions 
of  myself  and  you ;  no  other  evidence  is  required. 

Com.  I  have  no  wish  to  dispute  about  that,  Apollo¬ 
dorus;  but  let  me  renew  my  request  that  you  would 
repeat  the  tale  of  love. 

A  poll.  Well,  the  tale  of  love  was  on  this  wise:  — 
But  perhaps  I  had  better  begin  at  the  beginning,  and 
endeavor  to  repeat  to  you  the  words  as  Aristodemus 
gave  them. 

He  said  that  he  met  Socrates  fresh  from  the  bath 
and  sandalled;  and  as  the  sight  of  the  sandals  was 
unusual,  he  asked  him  whither  he  was  going  that  he 
was  so  fine. 

To  a  banquet  at  Agathon’s,  he  replied,  whom  I 
refused  yesterday,  fearing  the  crowd  that  there  would 
be  at  his  sacrifice,  but  promising  that  I  would  come 
to-day  instead ;  and  I  have  put  on  my  finery  because 
he  is  a  fine  creature.  What  say  you  to  going  with  me 
unbidden? 

Yes,  I  replied,  I  will  go  with  you,  if  you  like. 


296 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


Follow  then,  he  said,  and  let  us  demolish  the  proverb 
that  I 

“To  the  feasts  of  lesser  men  the  good  unbidden  go;” 

instead  of  which  our  proverb  will  run  that 

“  To  the  feasts  of  the  good  unbidden  go  the  good;  ” 

and  this  alteration  may  be  supported  by  the  authority 
of  Homer,  who  not  only  demolishes  but  literally  out¬ 
rages  this  proverb.  For,  after  picturing  Agamemnon 
as  the  most  valiant  of  men,  he  makes  Menelaus,  who 
is  but  a  soft-hearted  warrior,  come  of  his  own  accord  1 
to  the  sacrificial  feast  of  Agamemnon,  the  worse  to 
the  better. 

I  am  afraid,  Socrates,  said  Aristodemus,  that  I 
shall  rather  be  the  inferior  person,  who,  like  Menelaus 
in  Homer, 

“To  the  feasts  of  the  wise  unbidden  goes.” 

But  I  shall  say  that  I  was  bidden  of  you,  and  then 
you  will  have  to  make  the  excuse. 

“  Two  going  together,” 

he  replied,  in  Homeric  fashion,  may  invent  an  excuse 
by  the  way.2 

This  was  the  style  of  their  conversation  as  they 
went  along;  and  a  comical  thing  happened  —  Soc¬ 
rates  stayed  behind  in  a  fit  of  abstraction,  and  desired 
Aristodemus,  who  was  waiting,  to  go  on  before  him. 
When  he  reached  the  house  of  Agathon  he  found  the 
doors  wide  open,  and  a  servant  coming  out  met  him, 
and  led  him  at  once  into  the  banqueting-hall  in  which 
the  guests  were  reclining,  for  the  banquet  was  about 
to  begin.  Welcome,  Aristodemus,  said  Agathon,  you 
are  just  in  time  to  sup  with  us;  if  you  come  on  any 
other  errand  put  that  off,  and  make  one  of  us,  as  I 

»  Iliad,  xvii.  688.  2  Hiad,  x.  224. 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


297 


was  looking  for  you  yesterday  and  meant  to  have 
asked  you,  if  I  could  have  found  you.  But  what  have 
you  done  with  Socrates? 

I  turned  round  and  saw  that  Socrates  was  missing, 
and  I  had  to  explain  that  he  had  been  with  me  a  mo¬ 
ment  before,  and  that  I  came  by  his  invitation. 

You  were  quite  right  in  coming,  said  Agathon; 
but  where  is  he  himself? 

He  was  behind  me  just  now,  as  I  entered,  he  said, 
and  I  can  not  think  what  has  become  of  him. 

Go  and  look  for  him,  boy,  said  Agathon,  and  bring 
him  in;  do  you,  Aristodemus,  meanwhile  take  the 
place  by  Eryximachus. 

Then  he  said  that  the  attendant  assisted  him  to 
wash,  and  that  he  lay  down,  and  presently  another 
servant  came  in  and  said  that  our  friend  Socrates  had 
retired  into  the  portico  of  the  neighboring  house. 
“  There  he  is  fixed,  and  when  I  call  to  him,”  said  the 
servant,  “  he  will  not  stir.” 

How  strange,  said  Agathon;  then  you  must  call 
him  again,  and  keep  calling  him. 

Let  him  alone,  said  my  informant;  he  has  just  a 
habit  of  stopping  anywhere  and  losing  himself  with¬ 
out  any  reason;  don’t  disturb  him,  as  I  believe  he 
will  soon  appear. 

Well,  if  you  say  that,  I  will  not  interfere  with  him, 
said  Agathon.  My  domestics,  who  on  these  occasions 
become  my  masters,  shall  entertain  us  as  their  guests. 
“  Put  on  the  table  whatever  you  like,”  he  said  to  the 
servants,  “  as  usual  when  there  is  no  one  to  give  you 
orders,  which  I  never  do.  Imagine  that  you  are  our 
hosts,  and  that  I  and  the  company  are  your  guests; 
and  treat  us  well,  and  then  we  shall  commend  you.” 
After  this  they  supped;  and  during  the  meal  Aga¬ 
thon  several  times  expressed  a  wish  to  send  for  Soc¬ 
rates,  but  Aristodemus  would  not  allow  him;  and 


298 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


when  the  feast  was  half  over  —  for  the  fit,  as  usual, 
was  not  of  long  duration  —  Socrates  entered.  Aga- 
thon,  who  was  reclining  alone  at  the  end  of  the  table, 
begged  that  he  would  take  the  place  next  to  him ;  that 
I  may  touch  the  sage,  he  said,  and  get  some  of  that 
wisdom  which  came  into  your  mind  in  the  portico. 
For  I  am  certain  that  you  would  not  have  left  until 
you  had  found  what  you  were  seeking. 

How  I  wish,  said  Socrates,  taking  his  place  as  he 
was  desired,  that  wisdom  could  be  infused  through 
the  medium  of  touch,  out  of  the  full  into  the  empty 
man,  like  the  water  which  the  wool  sucks  out  of  the 
full  vessel  into  an  empty  one;  in  that  case  how  much 
I  should  prize  sitting  by  you!  For  you  would  have 
filled  me  full  of  gifts  of  wisdom,  plenteous  and  fair, 
in  comparison  of  which  my  own  is  of  a  very  mean  and 
questionable  sort,  no  better  than  a  dream;  but  yours 
is  bright  and  only  beginning,  and  was  manifested 
forth  in  all  the  splendor  of  youth  the  day  before  yes¬ 
terday  in  the  presence  of  more  than  thirty  thousand 
Hellenes. 

You  are  insolent,  said  Agathon;  and  you  and  I 
will  have  to  settle  hereafter  who  bears  off  the  palm 
of  wisdom,  and  of  this  Dionysus  shall  be  the  judge; 
but  at  present  you  are  better  occupied  with  the  ban¬ 
quet. 

Socrates  took  his  place  on  the  couch ;  and  when  the 
meal  was  ended,  and  the  libations  offered,  and  after 
a  hymn  had  been  sung  to  the  god,  and  there  had  been 
the  usual  ceremonies,  —  as  they  were  about  to  com¬ 
mence  drinking,  Pausanias  reminded  them  that  they 
had  had  a  bout  yesterday,  from  which  he  and  most  of 
them  were  still  suffering,  and  they  ought  to  be  al¬ 
lowed  to  recover,  and  not  go  on  drinking  to-day.  He 
would  therefore  ask,  How  the  drinking  could  be  made 
easiest  ? 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


299 


I  entirely  agree,  said  Aristophanes,  that  we  should, 
by  all  means,  get  off  the  drinking,  having  been  myself 
one  of  those  who  were  yesterday  drowned  in  drink. 

I  think  that  you  are  right,  said  Eryximachus,  the 
son  of  Acumenus ;  but  I  should  like  to  hear  one  other 
person  speak.  What  are  the  inclinations  of  our  host? 

I  am  not  able  to  drink,  said  Agathon. 

Then,  said  Eryximachus,  the  weak  heads  like  my¬ 
self,  Aristodemus,  Phaedrus,  and  others  who  never 
can  drink,  are  fortunate  in  finding  that  the  stronger 
ones  are  not  in  a  drinking  mood.  (I  do  not  include 
Socrates,  who  is  an  exceptional  being,  and  able  either 
to  drink  or  to  abstain.)  Well,  then,  as  the  company 
seem  indisposed  to  drink  much,  I  may  be  forgiven  for 
saying,  as  a  physician,  that  drinking  is  a  bad  practice, 
which  I  never,  if  I  can  help,  follow,  and  certainly  do 
not  recommend  to  another,  least  of  all  to  any  one  who 
still  feels  the  effects  of  yesterday’s  carouse. 

I  always  follow  what  you  advise,  and  especially 
what  you  prescribe  as  a  physician,  rejoined  Phaedrus 
the  Myrrhinusian,  and  the  rest  of  the  company,  if 
they  are  wise,  will  do  the  same. 

All  agreed  that  drinking  was  not  to  be  the  order  of 
the  day.  Then,  said  Eryximachus,  as  you  are  all 
agreed  that  drinking  is  to  be  voluntary,  and  that  there 
is  to  be  no  compulsion,  I  move,  in  the  next  place,  that 
the  flute-girl,  who  has  just  made  her  appearance,  be 
told  to  go  away;  she  may  play  to  herself,  or,  if  she  has 
a  mind,  to  the  women  who  are  within.  But  on  this  day 
let  us  have  conversation  instead ;  and,  if  you  will  allow 
me,  I  will  tell  you  what  sort  of  conversation.  This 
proposal  having  been  accepted,  Eryximachus  pro¬ 
ceeded  as  follows:  — 

I  will  begin,  he  said,  after  the  manner  of  Melanippe 
in  Euripides, 


“  Not  mine  the  word  ” 


300 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


which  I  am  about  to  speak,  but  that  of  Phaedrus. 
For  he  is  in  the  habit  of  complaining  that,  whereas 
other  gods  have  poems  and  hymns  made  in  their  honor 
by  the  poets,  who  are  so  many,  the  great  and  glorious 
god,  Love,  has  not  a  single  panegyrist  or  encomiast. 
Many  sophists  also,  as  for  example  the  excellent 
Prodicus,  have  descanted  in  prose  on  the  virtues  of 
Heracles  and  other  heroes;  and,  what  is  still  more 
extraordinary,  I  have  met  with  a  philosophical  work 
in  which  the  utility  of  salt  has  been  made  the  theme 
of  an  eloquent  discourse;  and  many  other  like  things 
have  had  a  like  honor  bestowed  upon  them.  And  only 
to  think  that  there  should  have  been  an  eager  interest 
created  about  them,  and  yet  that  to  this  day,  as  Phae¬ 
drus  well  and  truly  says,  no  one  has  ever  dared  worth¬ 
ily  to  hymn  Love’s  praises.  This  mighty  deity  has 
been  neglected  wholly!  Now  I  want  to  offer  Phae¬ 
drus  a  contribution  to  his  feast;  nor  do  I  see  how  the 
present  company  can,  at  this  moment,  do  anything 
better  than  honor  the  god  Love.  And  if  you  agree  to 
this,  there  will  be  no  lack  of  conversation;  for  I  mean 
to  propose  that  each  of  us  in  turn  shall  make  a  dis¬ 
course  in  honor  of  Love.  Let  us  have  the  best  which 
he  can  make;  and  Phaedrus,  who  is  sitting  first  on 
the  left  hand,  and  is  the  father  of  the  thought,  shall 
begin. 

No  one  will  oppose  that,  Eryximachus,  said  Soc¬ 
rates;  I  certainly  can  not  refuse  to  speak  on  the 
only  subject  of  which  I  profess  to  have  any  knowl¬ 
edge,  and  Agathon  and  Pausanias  will  surely  assent; 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  Aristophanes,  wrho  is 
always  in  the  company  of  Dionysus  and  Aphrodite; 
nor  will  any  one  disagree  of  those  whom  I  see  around 
me.  The  proposal,  as  I  am  aware,  may  seem  hard 
upon  us  whose  place  is  last;  but  that  does  not  matter 
if  we  hear  some  good  speeches  first.  Let  Phaedrus 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


301 


begin  the  praise  of  Love,  and  good  luck  to  him.  All 
the  company  expressed  their  assent,  and  desired  him 
to  do  as  Socrates  bade  him. 

Aristodemus  did  not  recollect  all  that  was  said,  nor 
do  I  recollect  all  that  he  related  to  me ;  but  I  will  tell 
you  what  I  thought  most  worthy  of  remembrance, 
and  what  the  chief  speakers  said. 

Phaedrus  began  by  affirming  that  Love  is  a  mighty 
god,  and  wonderful  among  gods  and  men,  but  espe¬ 
cially  wonderful  in  his  birth.  F or  that  he  is  the  eldest 
of  the  gods  is  an  honor  to  him ;  and  a  proof  of  this  is, 
that  of  his  parents  there  is  no  memorial ;  neither  poet 
nor  prose-writer  has  ever  affirmed  that  he  had  any. 
As  Hesiod  says:  — 

“  First  Chaos  came,  and  then  broad-bosomed  Earth, 

The  everlasting  seat  of  all  that  is, 

And  Love.” 

In  other  words,  after  Chaos,  the  Earth  and  Love, 
these  two  came  into  being.  Also  Parmenides  sings 
of  the  generation  of  the  gods :  — 

“  First  in  the  train  of  gods,  he  moulded  Love.” 

And  Acusilaus  agrees  with  Hesiod.  Thus  numerous 
are  the  witnesses  which  acknowledge  Love  to  be  the 
eldest  of  the  gods.  And  not  only  is  he  the  eldest,  he 
is  also  the  source  of  the  greatest  benefits  to  us.  For  I 
know  not  any  greater  blessing  to  a  young  man  begin¬ 
ning  life  than  a  virtuous  lover,  or  to  the  lover  than  a 
beloved  youth.  For  the  principle  which  ought  to  be 
the  guide  of  men  who  would  nobly  live  —  that  prin¬ 
ciple,  I  say,  neither  kindred,  nor  honor,  nor  wealth 
nor  any  other  motive  is  able  to  implant  as  surely  as 
love.  Of  what  am  I  speaking?  Of  the  sense  of  honor 
and  dishonor,  without  which  neither  states  nor  in¬ 
dividuals  ever  do  any  good  or  great  work.  And  I  say 


302 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


that  a  lover  who  is  detected  in  doing  any  dishonorable 
act,  or  submitting  through  cowardice  when  any  dis¬ 
honor  is  done  to  him  by  another,  will  be  more  pained 
at  being  detected  by  his  beloved  than  a,t  being  seen  by 
his  father,  or  his  companions,  or  any  one  else.  And 
the  beloved  has  the  same  feeling  about  his  love,  when 
he  again  is  seen  on  any  disgraceful  occasion.  And  if 
there  were  only  some  way  of  contriving  that  a  state 
or  an  army  should  be  made  up  of  lovers  and  their 
loves,  they  would  be  the  very  best  governors  of  their 
own  city,  abstaining  from  all  dishonor,  and  emulating 
one  another  in  honor;  and  when  fighting  at  one 
another’s  side,  although  a  mere  handful,  they  would 
overcome  all  men.  For  what  lover  would  not  choose 
rather  to  be  seen  by  all  mankind  than  by  his  beloved, 
either  when  abandoning  his  post  or  throwing  away 
his  arms?  He  wrould  be  ready  to  die  a  thousand  deaths 
rather  than  endure  this.  Or  who  would  desert  his 
beloved  or  fail  him  in  the  hour  of  danger?  The 
veriest  coward  would  become  an  inspired  hero,  equal 
to  the  bravest,  at  such  a  time ;  Love  wrould  inspire  him. 
That  courage  which,  as  Homer  says,  the  god  breathes 
into  the  soul  of  heroes,  Love  of  himself  infuses  into 
the  lover. 

Love  will  make  men  dare  to  die  for  their  beloved; 
and  women  as  well  as  men.  Of  this,  Alcestis,  the 
daughter  of  Pelias,  is  a  monument  to  all  Hellas;  for 
she  was  willing  to  lay  down  her  life  on  behalf  of  her 
husband,  when  no  one  else  would,  although  he  had  a 
father  and  mother;  but  the  tenderness  of  her  love  so 
far  exceeded  theirs,  that  they  seemed  to  be  as 
strangers  to  their  own  son,  having  no  concern  with 
him;  and  so  noble  did  this  action  of  hers  appear,  not 
only  to  men  but  also  to  the  gods,  that  among  the  many 
who  have  done  virtuously  she  was  one  of  the  very  few 
to  whom  the  gods  have*  granted  the  privilege  of  re- 


> 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


303 


turning  to  earth,  in  admiration  of  her  virtue;  such 
exceeding  honor  is  paid  by  them  to  the  devotion  and 
virtue  of  love.  But  Orpheus,  the  son  of  Oeagrus,  be¬ 
cause  he  appeared  to  them  to  be  a  cowardly  harper, 
who  did  not  dare  to  die  for  love,  like  Alcestis,  but  con- 
drived  to  go  down  alive  to  Hades,  was  sent  back  by 
itherh  without  effecting  his  purpose;  to  him  they 
mowed  an  apparition  only  of  her  whom  he  sought, 
l  Jut  herself  they  would  not  give  up;  moreover,  they 
afterwards  caused  him  to  suffer  death  at  the  hands 
of  women,  as  the  punishment  of  his  intrusiveness.  Far 
other  was  the  reward  of  the  true  love  of  Achilles  to¬ 
wards  his  lover  Patroclus  —  his  lover  and  not  his  love 
(the  notion  that  Patroclus  was  the  beloved  one  is  a 
foolish  error  into  which  Aeschylus  has  fallen,  for 
Achilles  was  surely  the  fairer  of  the  two,  fairer  also 
than  all  the  other  heroes;  and  he  was  much  younger, 
as  Homer  informs  us,  and  he  had  no  beard).  And 
greatly  as  the  gods  honor  the  virtue  of  love,  still  the 
return  of  love  on  the  part  of  the  beloved  to  the  lover 
is  more  admired  and  valued  and  rewarded  by  them, 
for  the  lover  has  a  nature  more  divine  and  more 
worthy  of  worship.  Now  Achilles  was  quite  aware, 
for  he  had  been  told  by  his  mother,  that  he  might  avoid 
death  and  return  home,  and  live  to  a  good  old  age,  if 
he  abstained  from  slaying  Hector.  Nevertheless  he 
gave  his  life  to  revenge  his  friend,  and  dared  to  die, 
not  only  on  his  behalf,  but  after  his  death.  Where¬ 
fore  the  gods  honored  him  even  above  Alcestis,  and 
sent  him  to  the  Islands  of  the  Blest.  These  are  my 
reasons  for  affirming  that  Love  is  the  eldest  and 
noblest  and  mightiest  of  the  gods,  and  the  chief est 
author  and  giver  of  happiness  and  virtue,  in  life  and 
after  death. 

This,  or  something  like  this,  was  the  speech  of 
Phaedrus;  and  some  other  speeches  followed  which 


304 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


Aristodemus  did  not  remember;  the  next  which  ihe 
repeated  was  that  of  Pausanias,  who  observed  that  tlie 
proposal  of  Phaedrus  was  too  indiscriminate,  and  thax 
Love  ought  not  to  be  praised  in  this  unqualified  man-\ 
ner.  If  there  were  only  one  Love,  then  what  he  said  , 
would  be  w^ell  enough ;  but  since  there  are  more  LcWesI 
than  one,  he  should  have  begun  by  determining  w/hichl 
of  them  was  to  be  the  theme  of  our  praises.  1/  wil® 
amend  this  defect,  he  said;  and  first  of  all  I  will  telfl 
you  which  Love  is  worthy  of  praise,  and  then  try  to 
hymn  the  praiseworthy  one  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the 
god.  For  we  all  know  that  Love  is  inseparable  from 
Aphrodite,  and  if  there  were  only  one  Aphrodite  there 
would  be  only  one  Love;  but  as  there  are  two  god¬ 
desses  there  must  be  two  Loves.  For  am  I  not  right 
in  asserting  that  there  are  two  goddesses?  The  elder 
one,  having  no  mother,  who  is  called  the  heavenly 
Aphrodite  —  she  is  the  daughter  of  Uranus;  the 
younger,  who  is  the  daughter  of  Zeus  and  Dione, 
whom  we  call  common ;  and  the  other  Love  who  is  her 
fellow- worker  may  and  must  also  have  the  name  of 
common,  as  the  other  is  called  heavenly.  All  the  gods 
ought  to  have  praise  given  to  them,  but  still  I  must 
discriminate  the  attributes  of  the  two  Loves.  For 
actions  vary  according  to  the  manner  of  their  per¬ 
formance.  Take  for  example,  that  which  we  are  now 
doing,  drinking,  singing  and  talking  —  these  actions 
are  not  in  themselves  either  good  or  evil,  but  turn  out 
in  this  or  that  way  according  to  the  mode  of  perform¬ 
ing  them;  and  when  well  done  they  are  good,  and 
when  wrongly  done  they  are  evil ;  and  in  like  manner 
not  every  love,  but  only  that  which  has  a  noble  pur¬ 
pose,  is  noble  and  worthy  of  praise.  But  the  Love 
who  is  the  son  of  the  common  Aphrodite  is  essentially 
common,  and  has  no  discrimination,  being  such  as  the 
meaner  sort  of  men  feel,  and  is  apt  to  be  of  women 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


305 


as  well  as  of  youths,  e  nd  is  of  the  body  rather  than  of 
the  soul  —  the  most  foolish  beings  are  the  objects  of 
this  love  which  desires  only  to  gain  an  end,  but  never 
thinks  of  accomplishing  the  end  nobly,  and  therefore 
does  good  and  evil  quite  indiscriminately.  The  god¬ 
dess  who  is  his  mother  is  far  younger,  and  she  was 
born  of  the  union  of  the  male  and  female,  and  par¬ 
takes  of  both  sexes.  But  the  son  of  the  heavenly 
Aphrodite  is  sprung  from  a  mother  in  whose  birth 
the  female  has  no  part,  but  she  is  from  the  male  only; 
this  is  that  love  which  is  of  youths  only,  and  the  god¬ 
dess  being  older  has  nothing  of  wantonness.  Those 
who  are  inspired  by  this  love  turn  to  the  male,  and 
delight  in  him  who  is  the  more  valiant  and  intelligent 
nature;  any  one  may  recognize  the  pure  enthusiasts 
in  the  very  character  of  their  attachments.  For  they 
love  not  boys,  but  intelligent  beings  whose  reason  is 
beginning  to  be  developed,  much  about  the  time  at 
which  their  beards  begin  to  grow.  And  in  choosing 
them  as  their  companions,  they  mean  to  be  faithful  to 
them,  and  to  pass  their  whole  life  with  them,  and  be 
with  them,  and  not  to  take  them  in  their  inexperience, 
and  deceive  them,  and  play  the  fool  with  them,  or 
run  away  from  one  to  another  of  them.  But  the  love 
of  young  boys  should  be  forbidden  by  law,  because 
their  future  is  uncertain;  they  may  turn  out  good  or 
bad,  either  in  body  or  soul,  and  the  affection  which  is 
devoted  to  them  may  be  thrown  away ;  in  this  the  good 
are  a  law  to  themselves,  and  the  coarser  sort  of  lovers 
ought  to  be  restrained  by  force,  as  we  restrain  or  at¬ 
tempt  to  restrain  them  from  fixing  their  affections  on 
women  of  free  birth.  For  the  abuse  of  a  thing  brings 
discredit  on  the  lawful  use,  and  this  has  led  some  to 
deny  the  lawfulness  of  love  when  they  see  the  impro¬ 
priety  and  evil  of  attachments  of  this  sort;  for  surely 
nothing  that  is  decorously  and  lawfully  done  can 


306 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


justly  be  censured.  Now  in  mjst  cities  the  practice 
about  love  is  determined  by  a  simple  rule,  and  is  easily 
intelligible.  But  here  and  in  Lacedaemon  there  is  a 
perplexity,  —  in  Elis  and  Boeotia,  having  no  gifts  of 
eloquence,  they  are  very  straightforward;  the  uni¬ 
versal  sentiment  is  simply  in  favor  of  these  con¬ 
nections,  and  no  one,  whether  young  or  old,  has  any¬ 
thing  to  say  to  their  discredit.  The  reason  is,  as  I 
suppose,  that  they  are  men  of  few  words  in  those 
parts,  and  therefore  the  lovers  do  not  like  the  trouble 
of  pleading  their  suit.  But  in  Ionia  and  other  places, 
and  generally  in  countries  which  are  subject  to  the 
barbarians,  loves  of  youths  share  the  evil  repute  of 
philosophy  and  gymnastics,  because  they  are  inimical 
to  tyranny;  for  the  interests  of  rulers  require  that 
their  subjects  should  be  poor  in  spirit,  and  that  there 
should  be  no  strong  bond  of  friendship  or  society  ; 
among  them,  and  love,  above  all  other  motives,  is 
likely  to  inspire  this,  as  our  Athenian  tyrants  learned 
by  experience;  for  the  love  of  Aristogeiton  and  the 
constancy  of  Harmodius  had  a  strength  which  undid 
their  power.  And,  therefore,  the  ill-repute  into  which 
these  attachments  have  fallen  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  i 
evil  condition  of  those  who  make  them  to  be  ill- 1 
reputed ;  that  is  to  say,  to  the  rapacity  of  the  governors 
and  the  cowardice  of  the  governed ;  on  the  other  hand, i 
the  indiscriminate  honor  which  is  given  to  them  in 
some  countries  is  attributable  to  the  laziness  of  those 
who  hold  this  opinion  of  them.  There  is  yet  a  more 
excellent  way  of  legislating  about  them,  which  is  our 
own  way;  but  this,  as  I  was  saying,  is  rather  perplex- : 
ing.  For,  observe  that  open  loves  are  held  to  be  more 
honorable  than  secret  ones,  and  that  the  love  of  the 
noblest  and  highest,  even  if  their  persons  are  less 
beautiful  than  others,  is  especially  honorable.  Con¬ 
sider,  too,  how  great  is  the  encouragement  which  all 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


307 


the  world  gives  to  the  lover ;  neither  is  he  supposed  to 
be  doing  anything  dishonorable ;  but  if  he  succeeds  he 
is  praised,  and  if  he  fail  he  is  blamed.  And  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  love  the  custom  of  mankind  allows  him 
to  do  many  strange  things,  which  philosophy  would 
bitterly  censure  if  they  were  done  from  any  motive  of 
interest,  or  wish  for  office  or  power.  He  may  pray, 
and  entreat,  and  supplicate,  and  swear,  and  be  a  serv¬ 
ant  of  servants,  and  lie  on  a  mat  at  the  door;  in  any 
other  case  friends  and  enemies  would  be  equally  ready 
to  prevent  him,  but  now  there  is  no  friend  who  will  be 
ashamed  of  him  and  admonish  him,  and  no  enemy  will 
charge  him  with  meanness  or  flattery;  the  actions  of  a 
lover  have  a  grace  which  ennobles  them;  and  custom 
has  decided  that  they  are  highly  commendable  and 
that  there  is  no  loss  of  character  in  them;  and,  what 
is  yet  more  strange,  he  only  may  swear  and  forswear 
himself  (this  is  what  the  world  says),  and  the  gods 
will  forgive  his  transgression,  for  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  lover’s  oath.  Such  is  the  entire  liberty 
which  gods  and  men  allow  the  lover,  and  which  in  our 
part  of  the  world  the  custom  confirms.  And  this  is 
one  side  of  the  question,  wdiich  may  make  a  man  fairly 
think  that  in  this  city  to  love  and  to  be  loved  is  held 
to  be  a  very  honorable  thing.  But  when  there  is  a 
new  regime,  and  parents  forbid  their  sons  to  talk 
with  their  lovers,  and  place  them  under  a  tutor’s  care, 
and  their  companions  and  equals  are  personal  in  their 
remarks  when  they  see  anything  of  this  sort  going  on, 
and  their  elders  refuse  to  silence  them  and  do  not  re¬ 
prove  their  words;  any  one  who  reflects  on  this  will, 
on  the  contrary,  think  that  we  hold  these  practices  to 
be  disgraceful.  But  the  truth,  as  I  imagine,  and  as  I 
said  at  first,  is,  that  whether  such  practices  are  honor¬ 
able  or  whether  they  are  dishonorable  is  not  a  simple 
question ;  they  are  honorable  to  him  who  follows  them 


30S 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


honorably,  dishonorable  to  him  who  follows  them  dis¬ 
honorably.  There  is  dishonor  in  yielding  to  the  evil, 
or  in  an  evil  manner ;  but  there  is  honor  in  yielding  to 
the  good,  or  in  an  honorable  manner.  Evil  is  the  vul¬ 
gar  lover  who  loves  the  body  rather  than  the  soul, 
and  who  is  inconstant  because  he  is  a  lover  of  the 
inconstant,  and  therefore  when  the  bloom  of  youth 
which  he  was  desiring  is  over,  he  takes  wings  and 
flies  away,  in  spite  of  all  his  words  and  promises; 
whereas  the  love  of  the  noble  mind,  which  is  in  union 
with  the  unchangeable,  is  everlasting.  The  custom  of 
our  country  would  have  them  both  proven  well  and 
truly,  and  would  have  us  yield  to  the  one  sort  of  love 
and  avoid  the  other;  testing  them  in  contests  and 
trials,  which  will  show  to  which  of  the  two  classes 
the  lover  and  the  beloved  respectively  belong.  And 
this  is  the  reason  why,  in  the  first  place,  a  hasty  at¬ 
tachment  is  held  to  be  dishonorable,  because  time  is 
the  true  test  of  this  as  of  most  other  things;  and 
then  again  there  is  a  dishonor  in  being  overcome  by 
the  love  of  money,  wealth,  or  of  political  power, 
whether  a  man  suffers  and  is  frightened  into  sur¬ 
render  at  the  loss  of  them,  or  is  unable  to  rise  above 
the  advantages  of  them.  For  none  of  these  things 
are  of  a  permanent  or  lasting  nature ;  not  to  mention 
that  no  generous  friendship  ever  sprung  from  them. 
There  remains,  then,  only  one  way  of  honorable  at¬ 
tachment  which  custom  allows  in  the  beloved,  and  this 
is  the  way  of  virtue;  any  service  which  the  lover  did 
was  not  to  be  accounted  flattery  or  dishonor,  and  the 
beloved  has  also  one  way  of  voluntary  service  which 
is  not  dishonorable,  and  this  is  virtuous  service. 

For  we  have  a  custom,  and  according  to  our  custom 
any  one  who  does  service  to  another  under  the  idea 
that  he  will  be  improved  by  him  either  in  wisdom,  or 
in  some  other  particular  of  virtue  —  such  a  voluntary 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


‘309 


service  as  this,  I  say,  is  not  regarded  as  a  dishonor,  and 
is  not  open  to  the  charge  of  flattery.  And  these  two 
customs,  one  the  love  of  youth,  and  the  other  the  prac¬ 
tice  of  philosophy  and  virtue  in  general,  ought  to 
meet  in  one,  and  then  the  beloved  may  honorably  in¬ 
dulge  the  lover.  For  when  the  lover  and  beloved  come 
together,  having  each  of  them  a  law,  and  the  lover  on 
his  part  is  ready  to  confer  any  favor  that  he  rightly 
can  on  his  gracious  loving  one,  and  the  other  is  ready 
to  yield  any  compliance  that  he  rightly  can  to  him  who 
is  to  make  him  wise  and  good ;  the  one  capable  of  com¬ 
municating  wisdom  and  virtue,  the  other  seeking  after 
knowledge,  and  making  his  object  education  and 
wisdom;  when  the  two  laws  of  love  are  fulfilled  and 
meet  in  one  —  then,  and  then  only,  may  the  beloved 
yield  with  honor  to  the  lover.  Nor  when  love  is  of 
this  disinterested  sort  is  there  any  disgrace  in  being 
deceived,  but  in  every  other  case  there  is  equal  dis¬ 
grace  in  being  or  not  being  deceived.  For  he  who  is 
gracious  to  his  lover  under  the  impression  that  he  is 
rich,  and  is  disappointed  of  his  gains  because  he  turns 
out  to  be  poor,  is  disgraced  all  the  same:  for  he  has 
done  his  best  to  show  that  he  would  turn  himself  to 
any  one’s  uses  base  for  the  sake  of  money,  and  this  is 
not  honorable.  But  on  the  same  principle  he  who 
lives  for  the  sake  of  virtue,  and  in  the  hope  that  he 
will  be  improved  by  his  lover’s  company,  shows  him¬ 
self  to  be  virtuous,  even  though  the  object  of  his 
affection  be  proved  to  be  a  villain,  and  to  have  no 
virtue ;  and  if  he  is  deceived  he  has  committed  a  noble 
error.  For  he  has  proved  that  for  his  part  he  will  do 
anything  for  anybody  for  the  sake  of  virtue  and  im¬ 
provement,  and  nothing  can  be  nobler  than  this.  Thus 
noble  in  every  case  is  the  acceptance  of  another  for 
the  sake  of  virtue.  This  is  that  love  which  is  the  love 
of  the  heavenly  goddess,  and  is  heavenly,  and  of  great 


310 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


price  to  individuals  and  cities,  making  the  lover  and 
the  beloved  alike  eager  in  the  work  of  their  own  im¬ 
provement.  But  all  other  loves  are  the  offspring  of 
the  common  or  vulgar  goddess.  To  you,  Phaedrus, 
I  offer  this  my  encomium  of  love,  which  is  as  good  as  I 
could  make  on  the  sudden. 

When  Pausamas  came  to  a  pause  (this  is  the  bal¬ 
anced  way  in  which  I  have  been  taught  by  the  wise  to 
speak),  Aristodemus  said  that  the  turn  of  Aristo¬ 
phanes  was  next,  but  that  either  he  had  eaten  too 
much,  or  from  some  other  cause  he  had  the  hiccough, 
and  was  obliged  to  change  with  Eryximachus  the 
physician,  who  was  reclining  on  the  couch  below 
him.  Eryximachus,  he  said,  you  ought  either  to 
stop  my  hiccough,  or  to  speak  in  my  turn  until  I  am 
better. 

-  I  will  do  both,  said  Eryximachus:  I  will  speak  in 
your  turn,  and  do  you  speak  in  mine ;  and  while  I  am 
speaking  let  me  recommend  you  to  hold  your  breath, 
and  if  this  fails,  then  to  gargle  with  a  little  water; 
and  if  the  hiccough  still  continues,  tickle  your  nose 
with  something  and  sneeze;  and  if  you  sneeze  once 
or  twice,  even  the  most  violent  hiccough  is  sure  to  go. 
In  the  meantime  I  will  take  your  turn,  and  you  shall 
take  mine.  I  will  do  as  you  prescribe,  said  Aristoph¬ 
anes,  and  now  get  on. 

Eryximachus  spoke  as  follows:  Seeing  that  Pau- 
sanias  made  a  fair  beginning,  and  but  a  lame  ending, 
I  will  endeavor  to  supply  his  deficiency.  I  think  that 
he  has  rightly  distinguished  two  kinds  of  love.  But 
my  art  instructs  me  that  this  double  love  is  to  be  found 
in  all  animals  and  plants,  and  I  may  say  in  all  that  is ; 
and  is  not  merely  an  affection  of  the  soul  of  man 
towards  the  fair,  or  towards  anything;  that,  I  say,  is 
a  view  of  the  subject  which  I  seem  to  have  gathered 
from  my  own  art  of  medicine,  which  shows  me  how 


311 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 

great  and  wonderful  and  universal  is  this  deity,  whose 
empire  is  over  all  that  is,  divine  as  well  as  human. 
And  from  medicine  I  will  begin  that  I  may  do  honor 
to  my  art.  For  there  are  in  the  human  body  two  loves, 
which  are  confessedly  different  and  unlike,  and  being 
unlike,  have  loves  and  desires  which  are  unlike;  and 
the  desire  of  the  healthy  is  one,  and  the  desire  of  the 
diseased  is  another;  and,  as  Pausanias  says,  the  good 
are  to  be  accepted,  and  the  bad  are  not  to  be  accepted ; 
and  so  too  in  the  body  the  good  and  healthy  elements 
are  to  be  indulged,  and  the  bad  elements  and  the 
elements  of  desire  are  not  to  be  indulged,  but  dis¬ 
couraged.  And  this  is  what  the  physician  has  to 
do,  and  in  this  the  art  of  medicine  consists:  for  medi¬ 
cine  may  be  regarded  generally  as  the  knowledge  of 
the  loves  and  desires  of  the  body,  and  how  to  fill  or 
empty  them;  and  the  good  physician  is  he  who  is  able 
to  separate  fair  love  from  foul,  or  to  convert  one  into 
the  other;  and  if  he  is  a  skilful  practitioner,  he  knows 
how  to  eradicate  and  how  to  implant  love,  whichever 
is  required,  and  he  can  reconcile  the  most  hostile 
elements  in  the  constitution,  and  make  them  friends. 
Now  the  most  hostile  are  the  most  opposite,  such  as 
hot  and  cold,  moist  and  dry,  bitter  and  sweet,  and  the 
like.  And  my  ancestor,  Asclepius,  knowing  how  to 
implant  friendship  and  accord  in  these  elements,  was 
the  creator  of  our  art,  as  our  friends  the  poets  here 
tell  us,  and  I  believe  them ;  and  not  only  medicine  in 
every  branch,  but  the  arts  of  gymnastic  and  hus¬ 
bandry  are  under  his  dominion.  Any  one  who  pays 
the  least  attention  will  also  perceive  that  in  music 
there  is  the  same  reconciliation  of  opposites ;  and  I 
suppose  that  this  must  have  been  the  meaning  of 
Heracleitus,  although  his  words  are  not  accurate;  for 
he  says  that  one  is  united  by  disunion,  like  the  har¬ 
mony  of  the  bow  and  the  lyre.  Now  there  is  an  ab- 


312 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


surdity  in  saying  that  harmony  is  disagreement  or  is 
composed  of  elements  which  are  still  in  a  state  of  dis¬ 
agreement.  But  perhaps  what  he  really  meant  to  say 
was  that  harmony  is  composed  of  differing  notes  of 
higher  or  lower  pitch  which  disagreed  once,  but  are 
now  reconciled  by  the  art  of  music;  for  if  the  higher 
and  lower  notes  still  disagree,  there  could  be  no 
harmony,  as  is  indeed  evident.  For  harmony  is  a 
symphony,  and  symphony  is  an  agreement;  but  an 
agreement  of  disagreements  while  they  disagree  can 
not  exist ;  there  is  no  harmony  of  discord  and  disagree¬ 
ment.  This  may  be  illustrated  by  rhythm,  which  is 
composed  of  elements  short  and  long,  once  differing 
and  now  in  accord ;  which  accordance,  as  in  the  former 
instance,  medicine,  so  in  this,  music  implants,  making 
love. and  unison  to  grow  up  among  them:  and  thus 
music,  too,  is  concerned  with  the  principles  of  love  in 
their  application  to  harmony  and  rhythm.  Again, 
in  the.  abstract  principles  of  harmony  and  rhythm 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  discerning  them,  for  as  yet 
love  has  no  double  nature.  But  wrhen  you  wrant  to 
use  them  in  actual  life,  either  in  the  composition  of 
music  or  in  the  correct  performance  of  airs  or  metres 
composed  already,  which  latter  is  called  education, 
then  the  difficulty  begins,  and  the  good  artist  is 
needed.  Then  the  old  tale  has  to  be  repeated  of  fair 
and  heavenly  love  —  the  love  of  Urania  the  fair  and 
heavenly  muse,  and  of  the  duty  of  accepting  the  tem¬ 
perate,  and  the  intemperate  only  that  they  may  be¬ 
come  temperate,  and  of  preserving  their  love;  and 
again,,  of  the  vulgar  Polyhymnia,  who  must  be  used 
with  circumspection  that  the  pleasure  may  not  gen¬ 
erate  licentiousness;  just  as  in  my  own  art  great  skill 
is  shown  in  gratifying  the  taste  of  the  epicure  without 
inflicting  upon  him  the  attendant  evil  of  disease. 
The  conclusion  is  that  in  music,  in  medicine,  in  all 


THE  SYMPOSIUM  313 

other  things  human  as  well  as  divine,  both  loves 
ought  to  be  noted  as  far  as  may  be,  for  they  are  both 
present. 

'  The  course  of  the  season  is  also  full  of  both  prin¬ 
ciples;  and  when,  as  I  was  saying,  the  elements  of  hot 
and  cold,  moist  and  dry,  attain  the  harmonious  love 
of  one  another  and  blend  in  temperance  and  harmony, 
they  bring  to  men,  animals  and  vegetables  health  and 
wealth,  and  do  them  no  harm ;  whereas  the  wantonness 
and  overbearingness  of  the  other  love  affecting  the 
seasons  is  a  great  injurer  and  destroyer,  and  is  the 
source  of  pestilence,  and  brings  many  different  sorts 
of  diseases  on  animals  and  plants;  for  hoar-frost  and 
hail  and  blight  spring  from  the  excesses  and  disorders 
of  these  elements  of  love,  the  knowledge  of  which  in 
relation  to  the  revolutions  of  the  heavenly  bodies  and 
the  seasons  of  the  year  is  termed  astronomy.  Further¬ 
more  all  sacrifices  and  the  whole  art  of  divination, 
which  is  the  art  of  communion  between  gods  and 
men  —  these,  I  say,  are  concerned  only  with  the 
salvation  and  healing  power  of  love.  For  all  impiety 
is  likely  to  ensue  if,  instead  of  accepting  and  honoring 
and  reverencing  the  harmonious  love  in  all  his  actions, 
a  man  honors  the  other  love,  whether  in  his  feelings 
towards  gods  or  parents,  towards  the  living  or  the 
dead.  Wherefore  the  business  of  divination  is  to  see 
to  these  loves  and  to  heal  them,  and  divination  is  the 
peacemaker  of  gods  and  men,  working  by  a  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  religious  or  irreligious  tendencies  which 
exist  in  merely  human  loves.  Such  is  the  great  and 
mighty,  or  rather  universal,  force  of  all  love.  And 
that  love,  especially,  which  is  concerned  with  the  good, 
and  which  is  perfected  in  company  with  temperance 
and  justice,  whether  among  gods  or  men,  has  the 
greatest  power,  and  is  the  source  of  all  our  happiness 
and  harmony  and  friendship  with  the  gods  which  are 


314 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


above  us,  and  with  one  another.  I  dare  say  that  I 
have  omitted  several  things  which  might  be  said  in 
praise  of  Love,  but  this  was  not  intentional,  and  you, 
Aristophanes,  may  now  supply  the  omission  or  take 
some  other  line  of  commendation;  as  I  perceive  that 
you  are  cured  of  the  hiccough. 

Yes,  said  Aristophanes,  who  followed,  the  hiccough 
is  gone ;  not,  however,  until  I  applied  the  sneezing ; 
and  I  wonder  whether  the  principle  of  order  in  the 
human  frame  requires  these  sort  of  noises  and  tick¬ 
lings,  for  I  no  sooner  applied  the  sneezing  than  I  was 
cured. 

Eryximachus  said:  Take  care,  friend  Aristophanes, 
you  are  beginning  with  a  joke,  and  I  shall  have  to 
watch  if  you  talk  nonsense;  and  the  interruption  will 
be  occasioned  by  your  own  fault. 

You  are  very  right,  said  Aristophanes,  laughing, 
and  I  wTill  retract  what  I  said ;  and  do  you  please  not 
to  watch  me,  as  I  fear  that  in  what  I  am  going  to  say, 
instead  of  making  others  laugh,  which  is  to  the  man¬ 
ner  born  of  our  muse  and  would  be  all  the  better,  I 
shall  only  be  laughed  at  by  them. 

Do  you  expect  to  shoot  your  holt  and  escape, 
Aristophanes?  Well,  if  you  are  very  careful  and 
have  a  due  sense  of  responsibility,  I  may  be  induced 
to  let  you  off. 

Aristophanes  professed  to  open  another  vein  of  dis¬ 
course  ;  he  had  a  mind  to  praise  Love  in  another  way, 
not  like  that  either  of  Pausanias  or  Eryximachus. 
Mankind,  he  said,  judging  by  their  neglect  of  him, 
have  never,  as  I  think,  at  all  understood  the  power 
of  Love.  For  if  they  had  understood  him  they  would 
surely  have  built  noble  temples  and  altars,  and  offered 
solemn  sacrifices  in  his  honor ;  but  this  is  not  done,  and 
certainly  ought  to  he  done:  for  of  all  the  gods  he  is  the 
best  friend  of  men,  the  helper  and  the  healer  of  the 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


315 


ills  which  are  the  great  obstruction  to  the  happiness 
of  the  race.  I  shall  rehearse  to  you  his  power,  and 
you  may  repeat  what  I  say  to  the  rest  of  the  world. 
And  first  let  me  treat  of  the  nature  and  state  of  man ; 
for  the  original  human  nature  was  not  like  the 
present,  but  different.  In  the  first  place,  the  sexes 
were  originally  three  in  number,  not  two  as  they  are 
now;  there  was  man,  woman,  and  the  union  of  the  two, 
having  a  name  corresponding  to  this  double  nacme, 
this  once  had  a  real  existence,  but  is  now  lost,  and  the 
name  only  is  preserved  as  a  term  of  reproach.  In  the 
second  place,  the  primeval  man  was  round  and  had 
four  hands  and  four  feet,  back  and  sides  forming  a 
circle,  one  head  with  two  faces,  looking  opposite  ways, 
set  on  a  round  neck  and  precisely  alike ;  also  four  ears, 
two  privy  members,  and  the  remainder  to  correspond. 
When  he  had  a  mind  he  could  walk  as  men  now  do, 
and  he  could  also  roll  over  and  over  at  a  great  rate, 
leaning  on  his  four  hands  and  four  feet,  eight  in 
all,  like  tumblers  going  over  and  over  with  their  legs 
in  the  air;  this  was  when  he  wanted  to  run  fast. 
Now  there  were  these  three  sexes,  because  the  sun, 
moon,  and  earth  are  three;  and  the  man  was  originally 
the  child  of  the  sun,  the  woman  of  the  earth,  and  the 
man-woman  of  the  moon,  which  is  made  up  of  sun 
and  earth,  and  they  were  all  round  and  moved  round 
and  round  like  their  parents.  Terrible  was  their 
might  and  strength,  and  the  thoughts  of  their  hearts 
were  great,  and  they  made  an  attack  upon  the  gods , 
and  of  them  is  told  the  tale  of  Otus  and  Ephialtes 
who,  as  Homer  says,  dared  to  scale  heaven,  and  would 
have  laid  hands  upon  the  gods.  Doubt  reigned  in  the 
councils  of  Zeus  and  of  the  gods.  Should  they  kill 
them  and  annihilate  the  race  with  thunderbolts,  as 
they  had  done  the  giants,  then  there  would  be  an  end 
of  the  sacrifice  and  worship  which  men  offered  to 


316 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


them ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  gods  could  not  suffer 
their  insolence  to  be  unrestrained.  At  last,  after  a 
good  deal  of  reflection,  Zeus  discovered  a  way.  He 
said:  “  I  have  a  notion  which  will  humble  their  pride 
and  mend  their  manners ;  they  shall  continue  to  exist, 
but  I  will  cut  them  in  two  and  then  they  will  be  di¬ 
minished  in  strength  and  increased  in  numbers;  this 
will  have  the  advantage  of  making  them  more  profit¬ 
able  to  us.  They  shall  walk  upright  on  two  legs,  and  if 
they  continue  insolent  and  won’t  be  quiet,  I  will  split 
them  again  and  they  shall  hop  about  on  a  single  leg.” 
He  spoke  and  cut  them  in  two,  like  a  sorb-apple  which 
is  halved  for  pickling,  or  as  you  might  divide  an  egg 
with  a  hair;  and  as  he  cut  them  one  after  another,  he 
bade  Apollo  give  the  face  and  the  half  of  the  neck  a 
turn  in  order  that  the  man  might  contemplate  the 
section  of  himself :  this  would  teach  him  a  lesson  of 
humility.  He  was  also  to  heal  their  wounds  and  com¬ 
pose  their  forms.  Apollo  twisted  the  face  and  pulled 
the  skin  all  round  over  that  which  in  our  language  is 
called  the  belly,  like  the  purses  which  draw  in,  and 
he  made  one  mouth  at  the  centre,  which  he  fastened 
in  a  knot  (this  is  called  the  navel)  ;  he  also  moulded 
the  breast  and  took  out  most  of  the  wrinkles,  much 
as  a  shoemaker  might  smooth  out  leather  upon  a  last ; 
he  left  a  few,  however,  in  the  region  of  the  belly  and 
navel,  as  a  memorial  of  the  primeval  change.  After 
the  division  the  twro  parts  of  man,  each  desiring  his 
other  half,  came  together,  and  threw  their  arms  about 
one  another  eager  to  grow  into  one,  and  would  have 
perished  from  hunger  without  ever  making  an  effort, 
because  they  did  not  like  to  do  anything  apart;  and 
when  one  of  the  halves  died  and  the  other  survived, 
the  survivor  sought  another  mate,  whether  the  section 
of  an  entire  man  or  of  an  entire  woman,  wiiich  had 
usurped  the  name  of  man  and  woman,  and  clung  to 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


317 


that.  And  this  was  being  the  destruction  of  them, 
when  Zeus  in  pity  invented  a  new  plan:  he  turned 
the  parts  of  generation  round  in  front,  for  this  was 
not  always  their  position,  and  they  sowed  the  seed  no 
longer  as  hitherto  like  grasshoppers  in  the  ground, 
but  in  one  another;  and  after  the  transposition  the 
male  generated  in  the  female  in  order  that  by  the 
mutual  embraces  of  man  and  woman  they  might 
breed,  and  the  race  might  continue;  or  if  man  came 
to  man  they  might  be  satisfied,  and  rest  and  go  their 
ways  to  the  business  of  life:  so  ancient  is  the  desire 
of  one  another  which  is  implanted  in  us,  reuniting  our 
original  nature,  making  one  of  two,  and  healing  the 
state  of  man.  Each  of  us  when  separated  is  but  the 
indenture  of  a  man,  having  one  side  only  like  a  flat 
fish,  and  he  is  always  looking  for  his  other  half.  Men 
who  are  a  section  of  that  double  nature  which  was 
once  called  Androgynous  are  lascivious;  adulterers 
are  generally  of  this  breed,  and  also  adulterous  and 
lascivious  women:  the  women  who  are  a  section  of 
the  woman  don’t  care  for  men,  but  have  female  at¬ 
tachments;  the  female  companions  are  of  this  sort. 
But  the  men  who  are  a  section  of  the  male  follow  the 
male,  and  while  they  are  young,  being  a  piece  of  the 
man,  they  hang  about  him  and  embrace  him,  and  they 
are  themselves  the  best  of  boys  and  youths,  because 
they  have  the  most  manly  nature.  Some  indeed  assert 
that  they  are  shameless,  but  this  is  not  true ;  for  they 
do  not  act  thus  from  any  want  of  shame,  but  because 
they  are  valiant  and  manly,  and  have  a  manly  counte¬ 
nance,  and  they  embrace  that  which  is  like  them.  And 
these  when  they  grow  up  are  our  statesmen,  and  these 
only,  which  is  a  great  proof  of  the  truth  of  what  I 
am  saying.  And  when  they  reach  manhood  they  are 
lovers  of  youth,  and  are  not  naturally  inclined  to 
marry  or  beget  children,  which  they  do,  if  at  all,  only 


318 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


in  obedience  to  the  law,  but  they  are  satisfied  if  they 
may  be  allowed  to  live  unwedded;  and  such  a  nature 
is  prone  to  love  and  ready  to  return  love,  always  em¬ 
bracing  that  which  is  akin  to  him.  And  when  one 
of  them  finds  his  other  half,  whether  he  be  a  lover  of 
youth  or  a  lover  of  another  sort,  the  pair  are  lost  in 
an  amazement  of  love  and  friendship  and  intimacy, 
and  one  will  not  be  out  of  the  other’s  sight,  as  I  may 
say,  even  for  a  moment:  these  are  they  who  pass  their 
lives  with  one  another;  yet  they  could  not  explain 
what  they  desire  of  one  another.'  For  the  intense 
yearning  which  each  of  them  has  towards  the  other 
does  not  appear  to  be  the  desire  of  intercourse,  but 
of  something  else  which  the  soul  desires  and  can  not 
tell,  and  of  which  she  has  only  a  dark  and  doubtful 
presentiment.  Suppose  Hephaestus,  with  his  instru¬ 
ments,  to  come  to  the  pair  who  are  lying  side  by  side 
and  say  to  them,  “  What  do  you  people  want  of  one 
another?  ”  they  would  be  unable  to  explain.  And 
suppose  further,  that  when  he  saw  their  perplexity 
he  said:  “Do  you  desire  to  be  wholly  one;  always 
day  and  night  to  be  in  one  another’s  company?  for 
if  this  is  what  you  desire,  I  am  ready  to  melt  you  into 
one  and  let  you  grow  together,  so  that  being  two  you 
shall  become  one,  and  while  you  live  live  a  common 
life  as  if  you  were  a  single  man,  and  after  your  death 
in  the  world  below  still  be  one  departed  soul  instead 
of  two  —  I  ask  whether  this  is  what  you  lovingly  de¬ 
sire,  and  whether  you  are  satisfied  to  attain  this?  ”  — 
there  is  not  a  man  among  them  when  he  heard  this 
who  would  deny  or  who  would  not  acknowledge  that 
this  meeting  and  melting  in  one  another’s  arms,  this 
becoming  one  instead  of  two,  was  the  very  expression 
of  his  ancient  need.  And  the  reason  is  that  human 
nature  was  originally  one  and  we  were  a  whole,  and 
the  desire  and  pursuit  of  the  whole  is  called  love. 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


319 


Where  was  a  time,  I  say,  when  the  two  were  one,  but 
W)w  because  of  this  wickedness  of  men  God  has  dis- 
W^rsed  us,  as  the  Arcadians  were  dispersed  into  vil- 
JJges  by  the  Lacedaemonians.  And  if  we  are  not 
obedient  to  the  gods  there  is  a  danger  that  we  shall 
be  split  up  again  and  go  about  in  basso-relievo,  like 
the  figures  having  only  half  a  nose  which  are  sculp¬ 
tured  on  columns,  and  that  we  shall  be  like  tallies. 
Wherefore  let  us  exhort  all  men  to  piety,  that  we  may 
avoid  the  evil  and  obtain  the  good,  of  which  Love  is 
the  lord  and  leader;  and  let  no  one  oppose  him  — 
he  is  the  enemy  of  the  gods  who  opposes  him.  For 
if  we  are  friends  of  God  and  reconciled  to  him  we 
shall  find  our  own  true  loves,  which  rarely  happens 
in  this  world\  I  am  serious,  and  therefore  I  must  beg 
Eryximachus  not  to  make  fun  or  to  find  any  allusion 
to  Pausanias  and  Agathon,  who,  as  I  believe,  are  of 
the  manly  sort  such  as  I  have  been  describing.  But 
my  words  have  a  wider  application  —  they  include 
men  and  women  everywhere ;  and  I  believe  that  if  all 
of  us  obtained  our  love,  and  each  one  had  his  partic¬ 
ular  beloved,  thus  returning  to  his  original  nature, 
then  our  race  would  be  happy.  And  if  this  would  be 
best  of  all,  that  which  would  be  best  under  present 
circumstances  would  be  the  nearest  approach  to  such 
an  union;  and  that  will  be  the  attainment  of  a  con¬ 
genial  love.  Therefore  we  shall  do  well  to  praise  the 
god  Love,  who  is  the  author  of  this  gift,  and  who  is 
also  our  greatest  benefactor,  leading  us  in  this  life 
back  to  our  own  nature,  and  giving  us  high  hopes  for 
the  future,  that  if  we  are  pious,  he  will  restore  us  to 
our  original  state,  and  heal  us  and  make  us  happy  and 
blessed.  This,  Ervximachus,  is  mv  discourse  of  love, 
which,  although  different  from  yours,  I  must  beg  you 
to  leave  unassailed  by  the  shafts  of  your  ridicule,  in 
order  that  each  may  have  his  turn;  each,  or  rather 


320 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


either,  for  Agathon  and  Socrates  are  the  only  o 
left.  j 

Indeed,  I  am  not  going  to  attack  you,  said  EryM- 
machus,  for  I  thought  your  speech  charming,  and  cjlid 
I  not  know  that  Agathon  and  Socrates  are  masters 
in  the  art  of  love,  I  should  be  really  afraid  that  they 
would  have  nothing  to  say,  after  all  the  world  of 
things  which  have  been  said  already.  But,  for  all 
that,  I  am  not  without  hopes. 

Socrates  said:  You  did  your  part  well,  Eryxi- 
machus;  but  if  you  were  as  I  am  now,  or  rather  as 
I  shall  be  when  Agathon  has  spoken,  you  would,  in¬ 
deed,  be  in  a  great  strait. 

You  want  to  cast  a  spell  over  me,  Socrates,  said 
Agathon,  in  the  hope  that  I  may  be  disconcerted, 
thinking  of  the  anticipation  which  the  theatre  has  of 
my  fine  speech. 

I  should  be  strangely  forgetful,  Agathon,  replied 
Socrates,  of  the  courage  and  magnanimity  which  you 
showed  when  your  own  compositions  were  about  to 
be  exhibited,  coming  upon  the  stage  with  the  actors 
and  facing  the  whole  theatre  altogether  undismayed, 
if  I  thought  that  your  nerves  could  be  fluttered  at  a 
small  party  of  friends. 

Do  you  think,  Socrates,  said  Agathon,  that  my 
head  is  so  full  of  the  theatre  as  not  to  know  how  much 
more  formidable  to  a  man  of  sense  a  few  good  judges 
are  than  many  fools? 

Nay,  replied  Socrates,  I  should  be  very  wrong  in 
attributing  to  you,  Agathon,  that  or  any  other  want 
of  refinement.  And  I  am  quite  aware  that  if  you  hap¬ 
pened  to  meet  with  any  one  whom  you  thought  wise, 
you  would  care  for  his  opinion  much  more  than  for 
that  of  the  many.  But  then  we,  having  been  a  part  of 
the  foolish  many  in  the  theatre,  can  not  be  regarded 
as  the  select  wise ;  though  I  know  that  if  you  chanced 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


321 


to  light  upon  a  really  wise  man,  you  would  be  ashamed 
of  disgracing  yourself  before  him  —  would  you  not? 

Yes,  said  Agathon. 

But  you  would  not  be  ashamed  of  disgracing  your¬ 
self  before  the  many? 

Here  Phaedrus  interrupted  them,  saying:  Don’t 
answer  him,  my  dear  Agathon;  for  if  he  can  only  get 
a  partner  with  whom  he  can  talk,  especially  a  good- 
looking  one,  he  will  no  longer  care  about  the  comple¬ 
tion  of  our  plan.  Now  I  love  to  hear  him  talk;  but 
just  at  present  I  must  not  forget  the  encomium  on 
Love  which  I  ought  to  receive  from  him  and  every 
one.  When  you  and  he  have  paid  the  tribute  to  the 
god,  then  you  may  talk. 

Very  good,  Phaedrus,  said  Agathon ;  I  see  no  rea¬ 
son  why  I  should  not  proceed  with  my  speech,  as  I 
shall  have  other  opportunities  of  conversing  with  Soc¬ 
rates.  Let  me  say  first  how  I  ought  to  speak,  and 
then  speak. 

The  previous  speakers,  instead  of  praising  the  god 
Love,  or  unfolding  his  nature,  appear  to  have  con¬ 
gratulated  mankind  on  the  benefits  which  he  confers 
upon  them.  But  I  would  rather  praise  the  god  first, 
and  then  speak  of  his  gifts;  this  is  always  the  right 
way  of  praising  everything.  May  I  express  un¬ 
blamed  then,  that  of  all  the  blessed  gods  he  is  the 
blessedest  and  the  best?  And  also  the  fairest,  which 
I  prove  in  this  way:  for,  in  the  first  place,  Phaedrus, 
he  is  the  youngest,  and  of  his  youth  he  is  himself  the 
witness,  fleeing  out  of  the  way  of  age,  which  is  swift 
enough  surely,  swifter  than  most  of  us  like:  yet  he 
can  not  be  overtaken  by  him ;  he  is  not  a  bird  of  that 
feather;  youth  and  love  live  and  move  together  — 
like  to  like,  as  the  proverb  says.  There  are  many 
things  which  Phaedrus  said  about  Love  in  which  I 
agree  with  him;  but  I  can  not  agree  that  he  is  older 


322 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


than  Iapetus  and  Kronos  —  that  is  not  the  truth ;  as 
I  maintain,  he  is  the  youngest  of  the  gods,  and  youth¬ 
ful  ever.  The  ancient  things  of  which  Hesiod  and 
Parmenides  speak,  if  they  were  done  at  all,  were  done 
of  necessity  and  not  of  love;  had  love  been  in  those 
days,  there  wrould  have  been  no  chaining  or  mutilation 
of  the  gods,  or  other  violence,  but  peace  and  sweet¬ 
ness,  as  there  is  now  in  heaven,  since  the  rule  of  Love 
began.  Love  is  young  and  also  tender;  he  ought  to 
have  a  poet  like  Homer  to  describe  his  tenderness,  as 
Homer  says  of  Ate,  that  she  is  a  goddess  and  ten¬ 
der:  — 

“  Her  feet  are  tender,  for  she  sets  her  steps, 

Not  on  the  ground  but  on  the  heads  of  men:  ” 

which  is  an  excellent  proof  of  her  tenderness,  because 
she  walks  not  upon  the  hard  but  upon  the  soft.  Let 
us  adduce  a  similar  proof  of  the  tenderness  of  Love; 
for  he  walks  not  upon  the  earth,  nor  yet  upon  the 
skulls  of  men,  which  are  hard  enough,  but  in  the  hearts 
and  souls  of  men:  in  them  he  walks  and  dwells  and 
has  his  home.  Not  in  every  soul  without  exception, 
for  where  there  is  hardness  he  departs,  where  there 
is  softness  there  he  dwells;  and  clinging  always  with 
his  feet  and  in  all  manner  of  ways  in  the  softest  of 
soft  places,  how  can  he  be  other  than  the  softest  of  all 
things?  And  he  is  the  youngest  as  well  as  the  ten- 
derest,  and  also  he  is  of  flexile  form;  for  without  flex¬ 
ure  he  could  not  enfold  all  things,  or  wind  his  way 
into  and  out  of  every  soul  of  man  without  being  dis¬ 
covered,  if  he  were  hard.  And  a  proof  of  his  flexi¬ 
bility  and  symmetry  of  form  is  his  grace,  which  is 
universally  admitted  to  be  in  an  especial  manner  the 
attribute  of  Love;  ungrace  and  love  are  always  at 
war  with  one  another.  The  fairness  of  his  complexion 
is  revealed  by  his  habitation  among  the  flowers;  for 


¥ 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


323 


he  dwells  not  amid  unflowering  or  fading  beauties, 
whether  of  body  or  soul  or  aught  else,  but  in  the  place 
of  flowers  and  scents,  there  he  dwells  and  abides. 
Enough  of  his  beauty  —  of  which,  however,  there  is 
more  to  tell.  But  I  must  now  speak  of  his  virtue: 
his  greatest  glory  is  that  he  can  neither  do  nor  suffer 
wrong  from  any  god  or  any  man;  for  he  suffers  not 
by  force  if  he  suffers,  for  force  comes  not  near  him, 
neither  does  he  act  by  force.  For  all  serve  him  of 
their  own  free  will,  and  where  there  is  love  as  well 
as  obedience,  there,  as  the  laws  which  are  the  lords 
of  the  city  say,  is  justice.  And  not  only  is  he  just 
but  exceedingly  temperate,  for  Temperance  is  the  ac¬ 
knowledged  ruler  of  the  pleasures  and  desires,  and 
no  pleasure  ever  masters  Love;  he  is  their  master  and 
they  are  his  servants;  and  if  he  conquers  them  he 
must  be  temperate  indeed.  As  to  courage,  even  the 
God  of  War  is  no  match  for  him;  he  is  the  captive 
and  Love  is  the  lord,  for  love,  the  love  of  Aphrodite, 
masters  him,  as  the  tale  runs ;  and  the  master  is 
stronger  than  the  servant.  And  if  he  conquers  the 
bravest  of  all  he  must  be  himself  the  bravest.  Of  his 
courage  and  justice  and  temperance  I  have  spoken, 
but  I  have  yet  to  speak  of  his  wisdom,  and  I  must 
try  to  do  my  best,  according  to  the  measure  of  my 
ability.  For  in  the  first  place  he  is  a  poet  (and  here, 
like  Eryximachus,  I  magnify  my  art),  and  he  is  also 
the  source  of  poesy  in  others,  which  he  could  not  be 
if  he  were  not  himself  a  poet.  And  at  the  touch  of 
him  every  one  becomes  a  poet,  even  though  he  had 
no  music  in  him  before ;  this  also  is  a  proof  that  Love 
I  is  a  good  poet  and  accomplished  in  all  the  musical 
arts;  for  no  one  can  give  to  another  that  which  he 
has  not  himself,  or  teach  that  of  which  he  has  no 
knowledge.  Who  will  deny  that  the  creation  of  the 
animals  is  his  doing?  Are ‘they  not  all  the  works  of 


324 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


his  wisdom,  born  and  begotten  of  him?  And  as  to  the 
artists,  do  we  not  know  that  he  only  of  them  whom 
love  inspires  has  the  light  of  fame?  —  he  whom  love 
touches  not  walks  in  darkness.  The  arts  of  medicine 
and  archery  and  divination  were  discovered  by  Apollo, 
under  the  guidance  of  love  and  desire,  so  that  he 
too  is  a  disciple  of  love.  Also  the  melody  of  the 
Muses,  the  metallurgy  of  Hephaestus,  the  weaving 
of  Athene,  the  empire  of  Zeus  over  gods  and  men, 
are  all  due  to  love,  who  was  the  inventor  of  them. 
Love  set  in  order  the  empire  of  the  gods  —  the  love 
of  beauty,  as  is  evident,  for  of  deformity  there  is  no 
love.  And  formerly,  as  I  was  saying,  dreadful  deeds 
were  done  among  the  gods,  because  of  the  rule  of 
necessity;  but  now  since  the  birth  of  love,  and  from 
the  love  of  the  beautiful,  has  sprung  every  good  in 
heaven  and  earth.  Therefore,  Phaedrus,  I  say  of  love 
that  he  is  the  fairest  and  best  in  himself,  and  the  cause 
of  what  is  fairest  and  best  in  all  other  things.  And 
I  have  a  mind  to  say  of  him  in  verse  that  he  is  the  god 
who 


“  Gives  peace  on  earth  and  calms  the  stormy  deep, 

Who  stills  the  waves  and  bids  the  sufferer  sleep.” 

He  makes  men  to  be  of  one  mind  at  a  banquet  such 
as  this,  fulfilling  them  with  affection  and  emptying 
them  of  disaffection.  In  sacrifices,  banquets,  dances, 
he  is  our  lord  —  supplying  kindness  and  banishing 
unkindness,  giving  friendship  and  forgiving  enmity, 
the  joy  of  the  good,  the  wonder  of  the  wise,  the  amaze¬ 
ment  of  the  gods;  desired  by  those  who  have  no  part 
in  him,  and  precious  to  those  who  have  the  better  part 
in  him;  parent  of  delicacy,  luxury,  desire,  fondness, 
softness,  grace;  careful  of  the  good,  uncareful  of  the 
evil.  In  every  word,  work,  wish,  fear  —  pilot,  helper, 
defender,  savior;  glory  of  gods  and  men,  leader  best 


THE  SYM1  OSIXJM  325 

and  brightest:  in  whose  footsteps  let  every  man  fol¬ 
low,  chanting  a  hymn  and  joining  in  that  fair  strain 
with  which  love  charms  the  souls  of  gods  an<  men. 
Such  is  the  discourse,  Phaedrus,  half  playful,  yet  1  av- 
ing  a  certain  measure  of  seriousness,  which,  accord;  ’  g 
to  my  ability,  I  dedicate  to  the  god. 

When  Agathon  had  done  speaking,  .A  ristodemus 
said  that  there  was  a  general  cheer;  the  fair  youth 
was  thought  to  have  spoken  in  a  manner  worthy  of 
himself,  and  of  the  god.  And  Socrates,  looking  at 
Eryximachus,  said:  Tell  me,  son  of  Acumenas,  was 
I  not  a  prophet?  Did  I  not  anticipate  that  Agakion 
would  make  a  wonderful  oration  and,  that  I  sho 
be  in  a  strait? 

I  think,  said  Eryximachus,  that  you  were  right  i 
the  first  anticipation,  but  not  in  the  second. 

Why,  my  dear  friend,  said  Socrates,  must  not  I 
or  any  one  be  in  a  strait  who  has  to  speak  after  such 
a  rich  and  varied  discourse  as  that?  I  am  especially 
struck  with  the  beauty  of  the  concluding  words  — 
who  could  listen  to  them  without  amazement?  When 
I  reflected  on  the  immeasurable  inferiority  of  my  own 
powers,  I  was  ready  to  run  away  for  shame,  if  there 
had  been  any  escape.  For  I  was  reminded  of  Gor- 
gias,  and  at  the  end  of  his  speech  I  fancied  that  Aga¬ 
thon  was  shaking  at  me  the  Gorginian  or  Gorgonian 
head  of  the  great  master  of  rhetoric,  which  was  simply 
to  turn  me  and  my  speech  into  stone,  as  Homer  says, 
and  strike  me  dumb.  And  then  I  perceived  how  fool¬ 
ish  I  had  been  in  consenting  to  take  my  turn  with  you 
in  praising  love,  and  saying  that  I  too  was  a  master 
of  the  art,  when  I  really  had  no  idea  of  the  meaning 
of  the  word  “  praise,”  which  appears  to  be  another 
name  for  glorification,  whether  true  or  false;  in  which 
sense  of  the  term  I  am  unable  to  praise  anything. 
For  I  in  my  simplicity  imagined  that  the  topics  of 


326 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


praise  should  be  true;  this  was  to  be  the  foundation, 
and  th  out  of  them  the  speaker  was  to  choose  the 
best  and  arrange  them  in  the  best  order.  And  I  felt 
quit  proud,  and  thought  that  I  could  speak  as  well 
as  another,  as  I  knew  the  nature  of  true  praise. 
Y  1  u  reas  I  see  now  that  the  intention  was  to  attribute 
o  love  .  very  species  of  greatness  and  glory,  whether 
really  belonging  to  him  or  not,  without  regard  to  truth 
or  falsehood  —  that  was  no  matter;  for  the  original 
proposal  seems  to  have  been  not  that  you  should 
praise,  but  only  that  you  should  appear  to  praise  him. 
Ai  d  you  attribute  to  love  every  imaginable  form  of 
praise,  and  say  that  “he  is  all  this,”  “  the  cause  of  all 
this,”  in  order  that  you  may  exhibit  him  as  the  fairest 
and  best  of  all;  and  this  of  course  imposes  on  the 
unwary,  but  not  on  those  who  know  him:  and  a  noble 
and  solemn  hymn  of  praise  have  you  rehearsed.  But 
as  I  misunderstood  the  nature  of  the  praise  when  I 
said  that  I  would  take  my  turn,  I  must  beg  to  be 
absolved  from  the  promise  which  (as  Euripides  would 
say)  was  a  promise  of  the  lips  and  not  of  the  mind. 
Farewell  then  to  such  a  strain:  for  that  is  not  my 
way  of  praising ;  no,  indeed,  I  can  not  attain  to  that. 
But  if  you  like  to  hear  the  truth  about  love,  I  am 
ready  to  speak  in  my  own  manner,  though  I  will  not 
make  myself  ridiculous  by  entering  into  any  rivalry 
with  you.  Say  then,  Phaedrus,  whether  you  would 
like  to  have  the  truth  about  love,  spoken  in  any  words 
and  in  any  order  which  may  happen  to  come  into 
my  mind  at  the  time.  Will  that  be  agreeable  to 
you? 

Aristodemus  said  that  Phaedrus  and  the  company 
bid  him  take  his  own  course.  Then,  he  said,  let  me 
have  your  permission  first  to  ask  Agathon  a  few  more 
questions,  in  order  that  I  may  take  his  admissions  as 
the  premisses  of  my  discourse. 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


327 


I  grant  the  permission,  said  Phaedrus:  put  your 
questions.  Socrates  then  proceeded  as  follows:  — 

In  the  magnificent  discourse  which  you  have  ut¬ 
tered,  I  think  that  you  were  right,  my  dear  Agathon, 
in  saying  that  you  would  begin  with  the  nature  of 
love  and  then  afterwards  speak  of  his  works  that 
is  a  way  of  beginning  which  I  very  much  approve. 
And  as  you  have  spoken  thus  eloquently  of  the  nature 
of  love,  will  you  answer  me  a  further  question?  —  Is 
love  the  love  of  something  or  of  nothing?  And  here 
I  must  explain  myself :  I  do  not  want  you  to  say  that 
love  is  the  love  of  a  father  or  the  love  of  a  mother  — 
that  would  be  ridiculous ;  but  to  answer  as  you  would, 
if  I  asked  is  a  father  a  father  of  something?  to  which 
you  would  find  no  difficulty  in  replying,  of  a  son  01 
daughter:  and  that  would  be  right. 

Very  true,  said  Agathon. 

And  you  would  say  the  same  of  a  mother  ? 

Pie  assented. 

Yet  let  me  ask  you  one  more  question  in  order 
further  to  illustrate  my  meaning.  Is  not  a  brother 
to  be  regarded  essentially  as  a  brother  of  something? 

Certainly,  he  replied. 

That  is,  of  a  brother  or  sister? 

Yes,  he  said. 

And  now,  said  Socrates,  I  will  ask  about  love :  — 
Is  love  of  something  or  of  nothing? 

Of  something,  surely,  he  replied. 

Keep  in  mind  what  this  is,  and  tell  me  what  I  want 
to  know  —  whether  love  desires  that  of  which  love 

is. 

Yes,  surely. 

And  does  he  possess,  or  does  he  not  possess,  that 
which  he  loves  and  desires? 

Probably  not,  I  should  say. 

Nay,  replied  Socrates,  I  would  have  you  consider 


328 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


whether  necessarily  is  not  rather  the  word.  The  in¬ 
ference  that  he  who  desires  something  is  in  want  of 
something,  and  that  he  who  desires  nothing  is  in  want 
of  nothing,  is  in  my  judgment,  Agathon,  absolutely 
and  necessarily  true.  What  do  you  think? 

I  think  with  you,  said  Agathon,  in  that. 

Very  good.  And  would  he  who  is  great  desire  to 
be  great,  or  he  who  is  strong  desire  to  be  strong? 

That  would  be  inconsistent  with  our  previous  ad¬ 
missions. 

True.  For  he  who  is  anything  can  not  want  to  be 
that  which  he  is? 

Very  true. 

But  if,  added  Socrates,  a  man  being  strong  desired 
to  be  strong,  or  being  swift  desired  to  be  swift,  or 
being  healthy  desired  to  be  healthy  (for  any  one  may 
be  imagined  to  desire  any  quality  which  he  already 
has) ,  in  these  cases  there  might  be  an  objection  raised 
—  they  might  be  said  to  desire  that  which  they  have 
already.  I  give  the  example  in  order  that  we  may 
avoid  misconception.  For  as  you  may  see,  Agathon, 
these  persons  must  be  supposed  to  have  their  respect¬ 
ive  advantages  at  the  time,  whether  they  choose  or 
not;  and  surely  no  man  can  desire  that  which  he  has. 
And  therefore,  when  a  person  says,  I  am  well  and 
wish  to  be  well,  or  I  am  rich  and  wish  to  be  rich,  and 
I  desire  simply  what  I  have;  we  shall  reply  to  him: 
“  You,  my  friend,  having  wealth  and  health  and 
strength,  want  to  have  the  continuance  of  them;  for 
at  this  moment,  whether  you  choose  or  no,  you  have 
them.  And  when  you  say,  I  desire  that  which  I  have 
and  nothing  else,  is  not  your  meaning  that  you  want 
to  have  what  you  now  have  in  the  future?  ”  He  must 
allow  this? 

He  must,  said  Agathon. 

Then,  said  Socrates,  this  is  equivalent  to  desiring 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


329 


not  what  he  has  or  possesses  already,  but  that  what 
he  has  may  be  preserved  to  him  in  the  future  ? 

Very  true,  he  said. 

Then  he  and  every  one  who  desires,  desires  that 
which  he  has  not  already,  and  which  is  future  and  not 
present,  and  which  he  has  not,  and  is  not,  and  of  which 
he  is  in  want;  —  these  are  the  sort  of  things  which 
love  and  desire  seek? 

Very  true,  he  said. 

Then  now,  said  Socrates,  let  us  recapitulate  the  ar¬ 
gument.  First,  is  not  love  of  something,  and  of  some¬ 
thing  too  which  is  wanting  to  a  man? 

Yes,  he  replied. 

Remember  further  what  you  said  in  your  speech, 
or  if  you  do  not  remember  I  will  remind  you: 
you  said  that  the  love  of  the  beautiful  disposes  the 
empire  of  the  gods,  for  that  of  deformed  things 
there  is  no  love  —  did  you  not  say  something  like 
that? 

Yes,  said  Agathon. 

Yes,  my  friend,  and  the  remark  is  a  just  one.  And 
if  this  is  true,  love  is  the  love  of  beauty  and  not  of 
deformity? 

He  assented. 

And  the  admission  has  been  already  made  that  love 
is  of  that  which  a  man  wants  and  has  not? 

True,  he  said. 

Then  love  wants  and  has  not  beauty? 

Certainly,  he  replied. 

And  would  you  call  that  beautiful  which  wants  and 
does  not  possess  beauty? 

Certainly  not. 

Then  would  you  still  say  that  love  is  beautiful? 

Agathon  replied:  I  fear  that  I  did  not  understand 
what  I  was  saying. 

Nay,  Agathon,  replied  Socrates;  but  I  should  like 


330 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


to  ask  you  one  more  question:  —  Is  not  the  good  also 
the  beautiful? 

Yes. 

Then  in  wanting  the  beautiful,  love  wants  also  the 
good? 

I  can  not  refute  you,  Socrates,  said  Agathon.  And 
let  us  suppose  that  what  you  say  is  true. 

Say  rather,  dear  Agathon,  that  you  can  not  refute 
the  truth;  for  Socrates  is  easily  refuted. 

And  now  I  will  take  my  leave  of  you,  and  rehearse 
the  tale  of  love  which  I  heard  once  upon  a  time  from 
Diotima  of  Mantineia,  who  was  a  vise  woman  in  this 
and  many  other  branches  of  knowledge.  She  was  the 
same  who  deferred  the  plague  of  Athens  ten  years 
by  a  sacrifice,  and  was  my  instructress  in  the  art  of 
love.  In  the  attempt  which  I  am  about  to  make  I 
shall  pursue  Agathon’s  method,  and  begin  with  his 
admissions,  which  are  nearly  if  not  quite  the  same 
which  I  made  to  the  wise  woman  when  she  questioned 
me :  this  will  be  the  easiest  way,  and  I  shall  take  both 
parts  myself  as  well  as  I  can.  For,  like  Agathon,  she 
spoke  first  of  the  being  and  nature  of  love,  and  then 
of  his  works.  And  I  said  to  her  in  nearly  the  same 
words  which  he  used  to  me,  that  love  was  a  mighty 
god,  and  likewise  fair;  and  she  proved  to  me  as  I 
proved  to  him  that,  in  my  way  of  speaking  about  him, 
love  was  neither  fair  nor  good.  “  What  do  you  mean, 
Diotima,”  I  said,  “is  love  then  evil  and  foul?” 
“  Hush,”  she  cried;  “  is  that  to  be  deemed  foul  which 
is  not  fair?  ”  “  Certainly,”  I  said.  “  And  is  that 

which  is  not  wise,  ignorant?  do  you  not  see  that  there 
is  a  mean  between  wisdom  and  ignorance?  ”  “  And 

what  is  this?  ”  I  said.  “  Right  opinion,”  she  replied; 
“  which,  as  you  know,  being  incapable  of  giving  a 
reason,  is  not  knowledge  (for  how  could  knowledge 
be  devoid  of  reason?  nor  again,  ignorance,  for  neither 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


331 


can  ignorance  attain  the  truth),  but  is  clearly  some¬ 
thing  which  is  a  mean  between  ignorance  and  wis¬ 
dom.^  “  Quite  true,”  I  replied.  “  Do  not  then  in¬ 
sist,”  she  said,  “  that  what  is  not  fair  is  of  necessity 
foul,  or  what  is  not  good  evil;  or  infer  that  because 
love  is  not  fair  and  good  he  is  therefore  foul  and  evil; 
for  he  is  in  a  mean  between  them.”  “  Well,”  I  said, 
“  love  is  surely  admitted  by  all  to  be  a  great  god.” 
“  By  those  who  know  or  by  those  who  don’t  know?  ” 
“  By  all.”  “  And  how,  Socrates,”  she  said  with  a 
smile,  “  can  love  be  acknowledged  to  be  a  great  god 
by  those  who  say  that  he  is  not  a  god  at  all?  ”  “  And 
who  are  they?”  I  said.  “You  and  I  are  two  of 
them,”  she  replied.  “How  can  that  be?”  I  said. 
“That  is  very  intelligible,”  she  replied;  “as  you 
yourself  would  acknowledge  that  the  gods  are  happy 
and  fair  —  of  course  you  would  —  would  you  dare 
to  say  that  any  god  was  not?  ”  “  Certainly  not,”  I 

replied.  “  And  you  mean  by  the  happy,  those  who 
are  the  possessors  of  things  good  or  fair?  ”  “  Yes.” 

“  And  you  admitted  that  love,  because  he  was  in  want, 
desires  those  good  and  fair  things  of  which  he  is  in 
want?  ”  “  Yes,  I  admitted  that.”  “  But  how  can  he 
be  a  god  who  has  no  share  in  the  good  or  the  fair?  ” 
“  That  is  not  to  be  supposed.”  “  Then  you  see  that 
you  also  deny  the  deity  of  love.” 

“  What  then  is  love?  ”  I  asked;  “  Is  he  mortal?  ” 
“  No.”  “  What  then?  ”  “  As  in  the  former  instance, 
he  is  neither  mortal  nor  immortal,  but  in  a  mean  be¬ 
tween  them.”  “  What  is  he  then,  Diotima?  ”  “  He 

is  a  great  spirit  ( ) ,  and  like  all  that  is  spiritual 
he  is  intermediate  between  the  divine  and  the  mortal. 

“  And  what  is  the  nature  of  this  spiritual  power?  ” 
I  said.  “  This  is  the  power,”  she  said,  “  which  inter¬ 
prets  and  conveys  to  the  gods  the  prayers  and  sacri¬ 
fices  of  men,  and  to  men  the  commands  and  rewards 


332 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


of  the  gods;  and  this  power  spans  the  chasm  which 
divides  them,  and  in  this  all  is  bound  together,  and 
through  this  the  arts  of  the  prophet  and  the  priest, 
their  sacrifices  and  mysteries  and  charms,  and  all 
prophecy  and  incantation,  find  their  way.  For  God 
mingles  not  with  man;  and  through  this  power  all 
the  intercourse  and  speech  of  God  with  man,  whether 
awake  or  asleep,  is  carried  on.  The  wisdom  which 
understands  this  is  spiritual;  all  other  wisdom,  such 
as  that  of  arts  or  handicrafts,  is  mean  and  vulgar. 
Now  these  spirits  or  intermediate  powers  are  many 
and  divine,  and  one  of  them  is  love.”  “  And  who,” 
I  said,  “  was  his  father,  and  who  his  mother?  ”  “  The 
tale,”  she  said,  “will  take  time;  nevertheless  I  will 
tell  you.  On  the  birthday  of  Aphrodite  there  was  a 
feast  of  the  gods,  at  which  the  god  Poros  or  Plenty, 
who  is  the  son  of  Metis  or  Discretion,  was  one  of  the 
guests.  When  the  feast  was  over,  Penia  or  Poverty, 
as  the  manner  was,  came  about  the  doors  to  beg.  Now 
Plenty,  who  was  the  worse  for  nectar  (there  was  no 
wine  in  those  days),  came  into  the  garden  of  Zeus 
and  fell  into  a  heavy  sleep;  and  Poverty  considering 
her  own  straitened  circumstances,  plotted  to  have  him 
for  a  husband,  and  accordingly  she  lay  down  at  his 
side  and  conceived  Love,  who  partly  because  he  is 
naturally  a  lover  of  the  beautiful,  and  because  Aph¬ 
rodite  is  herself  beautiful,  and  also  because  he  was 
bom  on  Aphrodite’s  birthday  is  her  follower  and  at¬ 
tendant.  And  as  his  parentage  is,  so  also  are  his  for¬ 
tunes.  In  the  first  place  he  is  always  poor,  and  any¬ 
thing  but  tender  and  fair,  as  the  many  imagine  him; 
and  he  is  hard-featured  and  squalid,  and  has  no  shoes, 
nor  a  house  to  dwell  in;  on  the  bare  earth  exposed 
he  lies  under  the  open  heaven,  in  the  streets,  or  at  the 
doors  of  houses,  taking  his  rest;  and  like  his  mother 
he  is  always  in  distress.  Like  his  father  too,  whom  he 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


333 


also  partly  resembles,  he  is  always  plotting  against 
the  fair  and  good;  he  is  bold,  enterprising,  strong, 
a  hunter  of  men,  always  at  some  intrigue  or  other, 
keen  in  the  pursuit  of  wisdom,  and  never  wanting 
resources;  a  philosopher  at  all  times,  terrible  as  an 
enchanter,  sorcerer,  sophist;  for  as  he  is  neither  mor¬ 
tal  nor  immortal,  he  is  alive  and  flourishing  at  one 
moment  when  he  is  in  plenty,  and  dead  at  another 
moment,  and  again  alive  by  reason  of  his  father’s 
nature.  But  that  which  is  always  flowing  in  is  always 
flowing  out,  and  so  he  is  never  in  want  and  never  in 
wealth,  and  he  is  also  in  a  mean  between  ignorance^ 
and  knowledge.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  just  thisj 
No  god  is  a  philosopher  or  seeker  after  wisdom,  f^ 
he  is  wise  already;  or  does  any  one  else  who  is  wm 
seek  after  wisdom.  Neither  do  the  ignorant  seek  af« 
wisdom.  F or  herein  is  the  evil  of  ignorance,  that  n I 
who  is  neither  good  nor  wise  is  nevertheless  satisfied* 
he  feels  no  want,  and  has  therefore  no  desire.”  “  But 
who  then,  Diotima,”  I  said,  “  are  the  lovers  of  wis¬ 
dom,  if  they  are  neither  the  wise  nor  the  foolish?  ” 
“  A  child  may  answer  that  question,”  she  replied; 
“  they  are  those  who,  like  love,  are  in  a  mean  between 
the  two.  For  wisdom  is  a  most  beautiful  thing,  and 
love  is  of  the  beautiful;  and  therefore  love  is  also  a 
philosopher  or  lover  of  wisdom,  and  being  a  lover  of 
wisdom  is  in  a  mean  between  the  wise  and  the  ignorant. 
And  this  again  is  a  quality  which  Love  inherits  from 
his  parents;  for  his  father  is  wealthy  and  wise,  and 
his  mother  poor  and  foolish.  Such,  my  dear  Socrates, 
is  the  nature  of  the  spirit  Love.  The  error  in  your 
conception  of  him  was  very  natural,  and  as  I  imagine 
from  what  you  say,  has  arisen  out  of  a  confusion  of 
love  and  the  beloved  —  this  made  you  think  that  love 
was  all  beautiful.  For  the  beloved  is  the  truly  beau¬ 
tiful,  delicate,  and  perfect  and  blessed;  but  the  prin- 


334  THE  SYMPOSIUM 

ciple  of  love  is  of  another  nature,  and  is  such  as  I  have 
described.” 

I  said:  “O  thou  stranger  woman,  thou  sayest  well, 
and  now,  assuming  love  to  be  such  as  you  say,  what  is 
the  use  of  him?  ”  “  That,  Socrates,”  she  replied,  “  I 
will  proceed  to  unfold:  of  his  nature  and  birth  I  have 
already  spoken;  and  you  acknowledge  that  love  is  of 
the  beautiful.  But  some  one  will  say :  Of  the  beauti¬ 
ful  in  what,  Socrates  and  Diotima  —  or  rather  let  me 
put  the  question  more  clearly,  and  ask:  When  a  man 
loves  the  beautiful,  what  does  he  love?  ”  I  answered 
her  “  That  the  beautiful  may  be  his.”  “  Still,”  she 
[said,  “  The  answer  suggests  a  further  question,  which 
lathis:  What  is  given  by  the  possession  of  beauty?  ” 
PThat,”  I  replied,  “  is  a  question  to  which  I  have  no 
Bbswer  ready.”  “  Then,”  she  said,  “  let  me  put  the 
Word  ‘  good  ’  in  the  place  of  the  beautiful,  and  repeat 
Ihe  question:  What  does  he  who  loves  the  good 
desire?  ”  “  The  possession  of  the  good,”  I  said. 

“  And  what  does  he  gain  who  possesses  the  good?  ” 
“  Happiness,”  I  replied;  “there  is  no  difficulty  in 
answering  that.”  “  Yes,”  she  said,  “  the  happy  are 
made  happy  by  the  acquisition  of  good  things.  Nor 
is  there  any  need  to  ask  why  a  man  desires  happiness; 
the  answer  is  already  final.”  “  That  is  true,  I  said. 
“  And  is  this  wish  and  this  desire  common  to  all?  and 
do  all  men  alwavs  desire  their  own  good,  or  only  some 
men?  —  what  think  you?”  “All  men,”  I  replied; 
“  the  desire  is  common  to  all.”  “  But  all  men, 
Socrates,”  she  rejoined,  “  are  not  said  to  love,  but  only 
some  of  them;  and  you  say  that  all  men  are  always 
loving  the  same  things.”  “  I  myself  wonder,”  I  said, 
“  why  that  is.”  “  There  is  nothing  to  wonder  at,”  she 
replied ;  “  the  reason  is  that  one  part  of  love  is  sepa¬ 
rated  off  and  receives  the  name  of  the  whole,  but  the 
other  parts  have  other  names.”  “  Give  an  example, 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


335 


I  said.  She  answered  me  as  follows:  “There  is 
poetry,  which,  as  you  know,  is  complex  and  manifold. 
And  all  creation  or  passage  of  non-being  into  being 
is  poetry  or  making,  and  the  processes  of  all  art  are 
creative;  and  the  masters  of  arts  are  all  poets.” 
“  Very  true.”  “  Still,”  she  said,  “  you  know  that  they 
are  not  called  poets,  but  have  other  names;  the  generic 
term  ‘  poetry  ’  is  confined  to  that  specific  art  which 
is  separated  off  from  the  rest  of  poetry,  and  is  con¬ 
cerned  with  music  and  metre ;  and  this  is  what  is  called 
poetry,  and  they  who  possess  this  kind  of  poetry  are 
called  poets.”  “  Very  true,”  I  said.  “  And  the  same 
holds  of  love.  For  you  may  say  generally  that  all 
desire  of  good  and  happiness  is  due  to  the  great  and 
subtle  power  of  love;  but  those  who,  having  their 
affections  set  upon  him,  are  yet  diverted  into  the  paths 
of  money-making  or  gymnastic  philosophy,  are  not 
called  lovers  —  the  name  of  the  genus  is  reserved  for 
those  whose  devotion  takes  one  form  only  — « they 
alone  are  said  to  love,  or  to  be  lovers.”  “  In  that,”  I 
said,  “  I  am  of  opinion  that  you  are  right.”  “  Yes,” 
she  said,  “  and  you  hear  people  say  that  lovers  are 
seeking  for  the  half  of  themselves ;  but  I  say  that  they 
are  seeking  neither  for  the  half,  nor  for  the  whole, 
unless  the  half  or  the  whole  be  also  a  good.  And  they 
will  cut  off  their  own  hands  and  feet  and  cast  them 
away,  if  they  are  evil;  for  they  love  them  not  because 
they  are  their  own,  but  because  they  are  good,  and 
dislike  them  not  because  they  are  another’s,  but  be¬ 
cause  they  are  evil.  There  is  nothing  which  men  love 
but  the  good.  Do  you  think  that  there  is?  ”  “  In¬ 

deed,”  I  answered,  “  I  should  say  not.”  “  Then,”  she 
said,  “  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter  is,  that  men 
love  the  good.”  “  Yes,”  I  said.  “  To  which  may  be 
added  that  they  love  the  possession  of  the  good?” 
“  Yes,  that  may  be  added.”  “  And  not  only  the  pos- 


336 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


session,  but  the  everlasting  possession  of  the  good?  ” 
“  That  may  be  added  too.”  “  Then,  love,”  she  said, 
“  may  be  described  generally  as  the  love  of  the  ever¬ 
lasting  possession  of  the  good?  ”  “  That  is  most 

true,”  I  said. 

“  Then  if  this  be  the  nature  of  love,  can  you  tell  me 
further,”  she  said,  “  what  is  the  manner  of  the  pur¬ 
suit?  what  are  they  doing  who  show  all  this  eagerness 
and  heat  which  is  called  love?  Answer  me  that.” 
“  ]STay,  Diotima,”  I  said,  “  if  I  had  known  I  should 
not  have  wondered  at  your  wisdom,  or  have  come  to 
you  to  learn.”  “  Well,”  she  said,  “  I  will  teach  you; 
—  love  is  only  birth  in  beauty,  whether  of  body  or 
soul.”  “  The  oracle  requires  an  explanation,”  I  said; 
“  I  don’t  understand  you.”  “  I  will  make  my  mean¬ 
ing  clearer,”  she  replied.  “  I  mean  to  say,  that  all 
men  are  bringing  to  the  birth  in  their  bodies  and  in 
their  souls.  There  is  a  certain  age  at  which  human 
nature  is  desirous  of  procreation ;  and  this  procreation 
must  be  in  beauty  and  not  in  deformity:  mid  this  is 
the  mystery  of  man  and  woman,  which  is  a  divine 
thing,  for  conception  and  generation  are  a  principle 
of  immortality  in  the  mortal  creature.  And  in  the 
inharmonical  they  can  never  be.  But  the  deformed  is 
always  inharmonical  with  the  divine,  and  the  beautiful 
harmonious.  Beauty,  then,  is  the  destiny  or  goddess 
of  parturition  who  presides  at  birth,  and  therefore 
when  approaching  beauty  the  conceiving  power  is 
propitious,  and  diffuse,  and  benign,  and  begets  and 
bears  fruit :  on  the  appearance  of  foulness  she  frowns 
and  contracts  in  pain,  and  is  averted  and  morose,  and 
shrinks  up,  and  not  without  a  pang  refrains  from  con¬ 
ception.  And  this  is  the  reason  why,  when  the  hour 
of  conception  arrives,  and  the  teeming  nature  is  full, 
there  is  such  a  flutter  and  ecstasy  about  beauty  whose 
approach  is  the  alleviation  of  pain.  For  lo\  e, 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


337 


Socrates,  is  not,  as  you  imagine,  the  love  of  the  beau¬ 
tiful  only.”  “  What  then?  ”  “  The  love  of  generation 
and  birth  in  beauty.”  “Yes,”  I  said.  “  Yes,  in¬ 
deed,”  she  replied.  “But  why  of  birth?”  I  said. 
F  Because  to  the  mortal,  birth  is  a  sort  of  eternity  and 
immortality,”  she  replied;  “  and  as  has  been  already 
admitted,  all  men  will  necessarily  desire  immortality 
together  with  good,  if  love  is  of  the  everlasting  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  good.” 

And  this  she  taught  me  at  various  times  when  she 
spoke  of  love.  And  on  another  occasion  she  said  to 
me,  “  What  is  the  reason,  Socrates,  of  this  love,  and 
the  attendant  desire?  See  you  not  how  all  animals, 
birds  as  well  as  beasts,  in  their  desire  of  procreation, 
are  in  agony  when  they  take  the  infection  of  love ;  — 
this  begins  with  the  desire  of  union,  to  which  is  added 
the  care  of  offspring,  on  behalf  of  whom  the  weakest 
are  ready  to  battle  against  the  strongest  even  to  the 
uttermost,  and  to  die  for  them,  and  will  let  themselves 
be  tormented  with  hunger  or  suffer  anything  in  order 
to  maintain  their  offspring.  Man  may  be  supposed 
to  do  this  from  reason ;  but  why  should  animals  have 
these  passionate  feelings?  Can  you  tell  me  why?” 
Again  I  replied,  that  I  did  not  know.  She  said  to 
me :  “  And  do  you  expect  ever  to  become  a  master  in 
the  art  of  love,  if  you  do  not  know  this?”  “But 
that,”  I  said,  “  Diotima,  is  the  reason  why  I  come  to 
you,  because,  as  I  have  told  you  already,  I  am  aware 
that  I  want  a  teacher;  and  I  wish  that  you  would  ex¬ 
plain  to  me  this  and  the  other  mysteries  of  love.” 
“  Marvel  not  at  this,”  she  said,  “  if  you  believe  that 
love  is  of  the  immortal,  as  we  have  already  admitted; 
for  here  again,  and  on  the  same  principle  too,  the  mor¬ 
tal  nature  is  seeking  as  far  as  is  possible  to  be  ever¬ 
lasting  and  immortal:  and  this  is  only  to  be  attained 
by  generation,  because  the  new  is  always  left  in  thq 


338 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


place  of  the  old.  For  even  in  the  same  individual 
there  is  succession  and  not  absolute  unity:  a  man  is 
called  the  same;  but  yet  in  the  short  interval  which 
elapses  between  youth  and  age,  and  in  which  every 
animal  is  said  to  have  life  and  identity,  he  is  under¬ 
going  a  perpetual  process  of  loss  and  reparation  — 
hair,  flesh,  bones,  blood,  and  the  whole  body  are 
always  changing.  And  this  is  true  not  only  of  the 
body,  but  also  of  the  soul,  whose  habits,  tempers, 
opinions,  desires,  pleasures,  pains,  fears,  never  remain 
the  same  in  any  one  of  us,  but  are  always  coming  and 
going.  And  what  is  yet  more  surprising  is,  that  this 
is  also  true  of  knowledge;  and  not  only  does  knowl¬ 
edge  in  general  come  and  go,  so  that  in  this  respect 
we  are  never  the  same ;  but  particular  knowdedge  also 
experiences  a  like  change.  For  what  is  implied  in  the 
word  “  recollection,”  but  the  departure  of  knowledge, 
which  is  ever  being  forgotten  and  is  renewed  and 
preserved  by  recollection,  appearing  to  be  the  same 
although  in  reality  new,  according  to  that  law  of  suc¬ 
cession  by  which  all  mortal  things  are  preserved,  not 
by  absolute  sameness  of  existence,  but  by  substitution, 
the  old  worn-out  mortality  leaving  another  new  and 
similar  one  behind  —  unlike  the  immortal  in  this, 
which  is  always  the  same  and  not  another?  And  in 
this  way,  Socrates,  the  mortal  body,  or  mortal  any¬ 
thing,  partakes  of  immortalit}^;  but  the  immortal  in 
another  way.  Marvel  not  then  at  the  love  which  all 
men  have  of  their  offspring ;  for  that  universal  love 
and  interest  is  for  the  sake  of  immortality.” 

When  I  heard  this,  I  was  astonished,  and  said:  “  Is 
this  really  true,  O  thou  wise  Uiotima?”  And  she 
answered  with  all  the  authority  of  a  sophist:  “  Of 
that,  Socrates,  you  may  be  assured;  —  think  only  of 
the  ambition  of  men,  and  you  will  marvel  at  their 
senselessness,  unless  you  consider  how  they  are  stirred 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


339 


by  the  love  of  an  immortality  of  fame.  They  are 
ready  to  run  risks  greater  far  than  they  would  have 
run  for  their  children,  and  to  spend  money  and  un¬ 
dergo  any  amount  of  toil,  and  even  to  die  for  the  sake 
of  leaving  behind  them  a  name  which  shall  be  eternal. 
Do  you  imagine  that  Alcestis  would  have  died  on 
behalf  of  Admetus,  or  Achilles  after  Patroclus,  or 
your  own  Codrus  in  order  to  preserve  the  kingdom 
for  his  sons,  if  they  had  not  imagined  that  the  memory 
of  their  virtues,  which  is  still  retained  among  us, 

,  would  be  immortal?  Nay,”  she  said,  44  for  I  am  per¬ 
suaded  that  all  men  do  all  things  for  the  sake  of  the 
glorious  fame  of  immortal  virtue,  and  the  better  they 
are  the  more  they  desire  this;  for  they  are  ravished 

with  the  desire  of  the  immortal. 

“  Men  whose  bodies  only  are  creative,  betake  them¬ 
selves  to  women  and  beget  children  —  this  is  the  char¬ 
acter  of  their  love ;  their  offspring,  as  they  hope,  will 
preserve  their  memory  and  give  them  the  blessedness 
and  immortality  which  they  desire  in  the  future.  But 
creative  souls  —  for  there  are  men  who  are  more 
creative  in  their  souls  than  in  their  bodies  —  conceive 
that  which  is  proper  for  the  soul  to  conceive  or  retain. 
And  what  are  these  conceptions?  —  wisdom  and  vir¬ 
tue  in  general.  And  such  creators  are  all  poets  and 
other  artists  who  may  be  said  to  have  invention.  But 
the  greatest  and  fairest  sort  of  wisdom  by  far  is  that 
which  is  concerned  with  the  ordering  of  states  and 
families,  and  which  is  called  temperance  and  justice. 
And  he  who  in  youth  has  the  seed  of  these  implanted 
in  him  and  is  himself  inspired,  when  he  comes  to 
maturity  desires  to  beget  and  generate.  And  he 
wanders  about  seeking  beauty  that  he  may  beget 
offspring  —  for  in  deformity  he  will  beget  nothing  — 
and  embraces  the  beautiful  rather  than  the  deformed ; 
and  when  he  finds  a  fair  and  noble  and  well-nurtured 


340 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


soul,  and  there  is  union  of  the  two  in  one  person,  he 
gladly  embraces  him,  and  to  such  an  one  he  is  full  of 
fair  speech  about  virtue  and  the  nature  and  pursuits 
of  a  good  man ;  and  he  tries  to  educate  him ;  and  at  the 
touch  and  presence  of  the  beautiful  he  brings  forth 
the  beautiful  which  he  conceived  long  before,  and  the 
beautiful  is  ever  present  with  him  and  in  his  memory 
even  when  absent,  and  in  company  they  tend  that 
which  he  brings  forth,  and  they  are  bound  together  by 
a  far  nearer  tie  and  have  a  closer  friendship  than 
those  who  beget  mortal  children,  for  the  children  who 
are  their  common  offspring  are  fairer  and  more  im¬ 
mortal.  Who,  when  he  thinks  of  Homer  and  Hesiod 
and  other  great  poets,  would  not  rather  have  their 
children  than  any  ordinary  human  ones  ?  Who  would 
not  emulate  them  in  the  creation  of  children  such  as 
theirs,  which  have  preserved  their  memory  and  given 
them  everlasting  glory  ?  Or  who  would  not  have  such 
children  as  Lycurgus  left  behind  to  be  the  saviors,  not 
only  of  Lacedaemon,  but  of  Hellas,  as  one  may  say? 
There  is  Solon,  too,  who  is  the  revered  father  of 
Athenian  laws;  and  many  others  there  are  in  many 
other  places,  both  among  Hellenes  and  barbarians. 
All  of  them  have  done  many  noble  works,  and  have 
been  the  parents  of  virtue  of  every  kind,  and  many 
temples  have  been  raised  in  honor  of  their  children, 
which  were  never  raised  in  honor  of  the  mortal  chil¬ 
dren  of  any  one. 

“  These  are  the  lesser  mysteries  of  love,  into  which 
even  you,  Socrates,  may  enter;  to  the  greater  and 
more  hidden  ones  which  are  the  crown  of  these,  and 
to  which,  if  you  pursue  them  in  a  right  spirit,  they 
will  lead,  I  know  not  whether  you  will  be  able  to 
attain.  But  I  will  do  my  utmost  to  inform  you,  and 
do  you  follow  if  you  can.  For  he  who  would  proceed 
rightly  in  this  matter  should  begin  in  youth  to  turn 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


341 


to  beautiful  forms;  and  first,  if  his  instructor  guide 
him  rightly,  he  should  learn  to  love  one  such  form 
only  —  out  of  that  he  should  create  fair  thoughts; 
and  soon  he  would  himself  perceive  that  the  beauty  of 
one  form  is  truly  related  to  the  beauty  of  another; 
and  then  if  beauty  in  general  is  his  pursuit,  how 
foolish  would  he  be  not  to  recognize  that  the  beauty 
in  every  form  is  one  and  the  same!  And  when  he 
perceives  this  he  will  abate  his  violent  love  of  the  one, 
which  he  will  despise  and  deem  a  small  thing,  and  will 
become  a  lover  of  all  beautiful  forms;  this  will  lead 
him  on  to  consider  that  the  beauty  of  the  mind  is  more 
honorable  than  the  beauty  of  the  outward  form.  So 
that  if  a  virtuous  soul  have  but  a  little  comeliness,  he 
will  be  content  to  love  and  tend  him,  and  will  search 
out  and  bring  to  the  birth  thoughts  which  may  im¬ 
prove  the  young,  until  his  beloved  is  compelled  to 
contemplate  and  see  the  beauty  of  institutions  and  . 
laws,  and  understand  that  all  is  of  one  kindred,  and 
that  personal  beauty  is  only  a  trifle;  and  after  laws 
and  institutions  he  will  lead  him  on  to  the  sciences, 
that  he  may  see  their  beauty,  being  not  like  a  servant 
in  love  with  the  beauty  of  one  youth  or  man  or  in¬ 
stitution,  himself  a  slave  mean  and  calculating,  but 
looking  at  the  abundance  of  beauty  and  drawing  to¬ 
wards  the  sea  of  beauty,  and  creating  and  beholding 
many  fair  and  noble  thoughts  and  notions  in  bound¬ 
less  love  of  wisdom;  until  at  length  he  grows  and 
waxes  strong,  and  at  last  the  vision  is  revealed  to  him 
of  a  single  science,  which  is  the  science  of  beauty^ 
everywhere.  To  this  I  will  proceed;  please  to  give 
me  your  very  best  attention. 

“  For  he  who  has  been  instructed  thus  far  in  the 
things  of  love,  and  who  has  learned  to  see  the  beautiful 
in  due  order  and  succession,  when  he  comes  toward 
the  end  will  suddenly  perceive  a  nature  of  wondrous 


342 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


beauty  —  and  this,  Socrates,  is  that  final  cause  of  all 
our  former  toils,  which  in  the  first  place  is  everlast- 
ing  —  not  growing  and  decaying,  or  waxing  and 
waning ;  in  the  next  place  not  fair  in  one  point  of  view 
and  foul  in  another,  or  at  one  time  or  in  one  relation  or 
at  one  place  fair,  at  another  time  or  in  another  re¬ 
lation  or  at  another  place  foul,  as  if  fair  to  some  and 
foul  to  others,  or  in  the  likeness  of  a  face  or  hands 
or  any  other  part  of  the  bodily  frame,  or  in  any 
form  of  speech  or  knowledge,  nor  existing  in  any 
other  being;  as  for  example,  an  animal,  whether  in 
earth  or  heaven,  but  beauty  only,  absolute,  separate, 
simple,  and  everlasting,  which  without  diminution  and 
without  increase,  or  any  change,  is  imparted  to  the 
ever-growing  and  perishing  beauties  of  all  other 
things.  He  who  under  the  influence  of  true  love 
rising  upward  from  these  begins  to  see  that  beauty, 
is  not  far  from  the  end.  And  the  true  order  of  going 
or  being  led  by  another  to  the  things  of  love,  is  to  use 
the  beauties  of  earth  as  steps  along  which  he  mounts 
upwards  for  the  sake  of  that  other  beauty,  going  from 
one  to  two,  and  from  two  to  all  fair  forms,  and  from 
fair  forms  to  fair  actions,  and  from  fair  actions  to 
fair  notions,  until  from  fair  notions  he  arrives  at  the 
notion  of  absolute  beauty,  and  at  last  knows  what  the 
essence  of  beauty  is.  This,  my  dear  Socrates,1 ”  said 
the  stranger  of  Mantineia,  “  is  that  life  above  all 
others  which  man  should  live,  in  the  contemplation  of 
beauty  absolute;  a  beauty  which  if  you  once  beheld, 
you  would  see  not  to  be  after  the  measure  of  gold,  and 
garments,  and  fair  boys  and  youths,  which  when  you 
now  behold  you  are  in  fond  amazement,  and  you  and 
many  a  one  are  content  to  live  seeing  only  and  con¬ 
versing  with  them  without  meat  or  drink,  if  that  w  ere 
possible  —  you  only  want  to  be  with  them  and  to  look 
at  them.  But  what  if  man  had  eyes  to  see  the  true 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


343 


beauty  —  the  divine  beauty,  I  mean,  pure  and  clear 
and  unalloyed,  not  clogged  with  the  pollutions  of 
mortality,  and  all  the  colors  and  vanities  of  human 
life  —  thither  looking,  and  holding  converse  with  the 
true  beauty  divine  and  simple,  and  bringing  into  being 
and  educating  true  creations  of  virtue  and  not  idols 
only?  Do  you  not  see  that  in  that  communion  only, 
beholding  beauty  with  the  eye  of  the  mind,  he  will 
be  enabled  to  bring  forth,  not  images  of  beauty,  but 
realities ;  for  he  has  hold  not  of  an  image  but  of  a 
reality,  and  bringing  forth  and  educating  true  virtue 
to  become  the  friend  of  God  and  be  immortal,  if 
mortal  man  may.  Would  that  be  an  ignoble  life?  ” 

Such,  Phaedrus  —  and  I  speak  not  only  to  you,  but 
to  all  men  —  were  the  words  of  Diotima ;  and  I  am 
persuaded  of  their  truth.  And  being  persuaded  of 
them,  I  try  to  persuade  others,  that  in  the  attainment 
of  this  end  human  nature  will  not  easily  find  a  better 
helper  than  love.  And  therefore,  also,  I  say  that 
every  man  ought  to  honor  him  as  I  myself  honor  him, 
and  walk  in  his  ways,  and  exhort  others  to  do  the  same, 
even  as  I  praise  the  power  and  spirit  of  love  according 
to  the  measure  of  my  ability  now  and  ever. 

The  words  which  I  have  spoken,  you,  Phaedrus, 
may  call  an  encomium  of  love,  or  anything  else  which 
you  please. 

When  Socrates  had  done  speaking,  the  company 
applauded,  and  Aristophanes  was  beginning  to  say 
something  in  answer  to  the  allusion  which  Socrates 
had  made  to  his  own  speech,  when  suddenly  there  was 
a  great  knocking  at  the  door  of  the  house,  as  of  revel¬ 
lers,  and  the  sound  of  a  flute-girl  was  heard.  Agathon 
told  the  attendants  to  go  and  see  who  were  the  in¬ 
truders.  “  If  they  are  friends  of  ours,”  he  said, 
“  invite  them  in,  but  if  not  say  that  the  drinking  is 
over.”  A  little  while  afterwards  they  heard  the  voice 


344 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


of  Alcibiades  resounding  in  the  court;  he  was  in  a 
great  state  of  intoxication,  and  kept  roaring  and 
shouting  “  Where  is  Agathon?  Lead  me  to  Aga¬ 
thon,”  and  at  length,  supported  by  the  flute-girl 
and  some  of  his  companions,  he  found  his  way  to 
them.  “  Hail  friends,”  he  said,  appearing  at  the  door 
crowned  with  a  massive  garland  of  ivy  and  wall¬ 
flowers,  and  having  his  head  flowing  with  ribands. 
“  Will  you  have  a  very  drunken  man  as  a  companion 
of  your  revels?  Or  shall  I  crown  Agathon,  as  was 
my  intention  in  coming,  and  go  my  way?  For  I  was 
unable  to  come  yesterday,  and  therefore  I  come  today, 
carrying  on  my  head  these  ribands,  that  taking  them 
from  my  own  head,  I  may  crown  the  head  of  this 
fairest  and  wisest  of  men,  as  I  may  be  allowed  to  call 
him.  Will  you  laugh  at  me  because  I  am  drunk? 
Yet  I  know  very  well  that  I  am  speaking  the  truth, 
although  you  may  laugh.  But  first  tell  me  whether 
I  shall  come  in  on  the  understanding  that  I  am  drunk. 
Will  you  drink  with  me  or  not?  ” 

The  company  were  vociferous  in  begging  that  he 
would  take  his  place  among  them,  and  Agathon  spe¬ 
cially  invited  him.  Thereupon  he  was  led  in  by  the 
people  wTho  were  with  him;  and  as  he  wras  being  led 
he  took  the  crown  and  ribands  from  his  head,  intend¬ 
ing  to  crown  Agathon,  and  had  them  before  his  eyes; 
this  prevented  him  from  seeing  Socrates,  who  made 
way  for  him,  and  Alcibiades  took  the  vacant  place 
between  Agathon  and  Socrates,  and  in  taking  the 
place  he  embraced  Agathon  and  crowned  him.  Take 
off  his  sandals,  said  Agathon,  and  let  him  make  a 
third  on  the  same  couch. 

By  all  means;  but  who  makes  the  third  partner  in 
our  revels?  said  Alcibiades,  turning  round  and  start¬ 
ing  up  as  he  caught  sight  of  Socrates.  By  Heracles, 
he  said,  what  is  this?  here  is  Socrates  always  lying  in 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


345 


wait  for  me,  and  always,  as  his  wray  is,  coming  out  at 
all  sorts  of  unsuspected  places:  and  now,  what  have 
you  to  say  for  yourself,  and  why  are  you  lying  here, 
where  I  perceive  that  you  have  contrived  to  find  a 
place,  not  by  a  professor  or  lover  of  jokes,  like 
Aristophanes,  but  by  the  fairest  of  the  company? 

Socrates  turned  to  Agathon  and  said:  I  must  ask 
you  to  protect  me,  Agathon;  for  this  passion  of  his 
has  grown  quite  a  serious  matter.  Since  I  became 
his  admirer  I  have  never  been  allowed  to  speak  to  any 
other  fair  one,  or  so  much  as  to  look  at  them.  If  I  do 
he  goes  wild  with  envy  and  jealousy,  and  not  only 
abuses  me  but  can  hardly  keep  his  hands  off  me,  and 
at  this  moment  he  may  do  me  some  harm.  Please  to 
see  to  this,  and  either  reconcile  me  to  him,  or,  if  he 
attempts  violence,  protect  me,  as  I  am  in  bodily  fear 
of  his  mad  and  passionate  attempts. 

There  can  never  be  reconciliation  between  you  and 
me,  said  Alcibiades;  but  for  the  present  I  will  defer 
your  chastisement.  And  I  must  beg  you,  Agathon,  to 
give  me  back  some  of  the  ribands  that  I  may  crown 
the  marvellous  head  of  this  universal  despot  —  I 
would  not  have  him  complain  of  me  for  crowning  you, 
and  neglecting  him,  who  in  conversation  is  the  con¬ 
queror  of  all  mankind ;  and  this  not  once  only,  as  you 
were  the  day  before  yesterday,  but  always.  Then 
taking  some  of  the  ribands,  he  crowned  Socrates,  and 
again  reclined.  When  he  had  lain  down  again,  he 
said:  You  seem,  my  friends,  to  be  sober,  which  is  a 
thing  not  to  be  endured ;  you  must  drink  —  for  that 
was  the  agreement  which  I  made  with  you  —  and  I 
elect  myself  master  of  the  feast  until  you  are  well 
drunk.  Let  us  have  a  large  goblet,  Agathon,  or 
rather,  he  said,  addressing  the  attendant,  bring  me 
that  wine-cooler.  The  wine-cooler  was  a  vessel  hold¬ 
ing  more  than  two  quarts  which  caught  his  eye  — 


346 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


this  he  filled  and  emptied,  and  bid  the  attendant 
fill  it  again  for  Socrates.  Observe,  my  friends,  said 
Alcibiades,  that  my  ingenious  device  will  have  no 
effect  on  Socrates,  for  he  can  drink  any  quantity  of 
wine  and  not  be  at  all  nearer  being  drunk.  Socrates 
drank  the  cup  which  the  attendant  filled  for  him. 

Eryximachus  said:  What  is  this,  Alcibiades?  Are 
we  to  have  neither  conversation  nor  singing  over  our 
cups;  but  simply  to  drink  as  if  we  were  thirsty? 

Alcibiades  replied :  Hail,  worthy  son  of  a  most  wise 
and  worthy  sire. 

The  same  to  you,  said  Eryximachus;  but  what  shall 
we  do? 

That  I  leave  to  you,  said  Alcibiades. 


“  The  wise  physician  skilled  our  wounds  to  heal  ” 

shall  prescribe  and  we  will  obey.  What  do  you  want? 

Well,  Eryximachus  said:  Before  you  appeared  a 
resolution  was  agreed  to  by  us  that  each  one  in  turn 
should  speak  a  discourse  in  praise  of  love,  and  as  good 
a  one  as  he  could :  this  was  passed  round  from  left  to 
right;  and  as  all  of  us  have  spoken,  and  you  have 
not  spoken  but  have  well  drunken,  you  ought  to  speak, 
and  then  impose  upon  Socrates  any  task  which  you 
please,  and  he  on  his  right  hand  neighbor,  and  so  on. 

That  is  good,  Eryximachus,  said  Alcibiades;  and 
yet  the  comparison  of  a  drunken  man’s  speech  with 
those  of  sober  men  is  hardly  fair;  and  I  should  like  to 
know,  sweet  friend,  whether  you  really  believe  what 
Socrates  was  just  now  saying;  for  I  can  assure  you 
that  the  very  reverse  is  the  fact,  and  that  if  I  praise 
any  one  but  himself  in  his  presence,  whether  God  or 
man,  he  will  hardly  keep  his  hands  off  me. 

For  shame,  said  Socrates. 

By  Poseidon,  said  Alcibiades,  there  is  no  use  in 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


347 


your  denying  this,  for  no  creature  will  I  praise  in  your 
presence. 

Well  then  take  your  own  course,  said  Eryximachus, 
and  if  you  like  praise  Socrates. 

What  do  you  think,  Eryximachus?  said  Alcibiades; 
shall  I  attack  him  and  inflict  the  punishment  in  your 
presence? 

What  are  you  about?  said  Socrates;  are  you  going 
to  raise  a  laugh  at  me?  Is  that  the  meaning  of  your 
praise  ? 

I  am  going  to  speak  the  truth,  if  you  will  permit 
me. 

I  not  only  permit  you  but  exhort  you  to  speak  the 
truth. 

Then  I  will  begin  at  once,  said  Alcibiades,  and  if  I 
say  anything  that  is  not  true,  you  may  interrupt  me 
if  you  will,  and  say  that  I  speak  falsely,  though  my 
intention  is  to  speak  the  truth.  But  you  must  not 
wonder  if  I  speak  any  how  as  things  come  into  my 
mind;  for  the  fluent  and  orderly  enumeration  of  all 
your  wonderful  qualities  is  not  a  task  the  accomplish¬ 
ment  of  which  is  easy  to  a  man  in  my  condition. 

<  I  shall  praise  Socrates  in  a  figure  which  shall  ap¬ 
pear  to  him  to  be  a  caricature,  and  yet  I  do  not  mean 
to  laugh  at  him,  but  only  to  speak  the  truth.  I  say 
then,  that  he  is  exactly  like  the  masks  of  Silenus, 
which  may  be  seen  sitting  in  the  statuaries’  shops, 
having  pipes  and  flutes  in  their  mouths;  and  they  are 
made  to  open  in  the  middle,  and  there  are  images  of 
gods  inside  them.  I  say  also  that  he  is  like  Marsyas 
the  satyr.  You  will  not  deny,  Socrates,  that  your 
face  is  like  that  of  a  satyr.  Aye,  and  there  is  a  re¬ 
semblance  in  other  points  too.  For  example,  you  are 
a  bully,  —  that  I  am  in  a  position  to  prove  by  the 

evidences  of  witnesses,  if  vou  will  not  confess.  And 

*  • 

are  you  not  a  flute-player?  That  you  are,  and  a  far 


348 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


more  wonderful  performer  than  Marsyas.  For  he 
indeed  with  instruments  charmed  the  souls  of  men 
by  the  power  of  his  breath,  as  the  performers  of  his 
music  do  still:  for  the  melodies  of  Olympus  are 
derived  from  the  teaching  of  Marsyas,  and  these, 
whether  they  are  played  by  a  great  master  or  by  a 
miserable  flute-girl,  have  a  power  which  no  others 
have ;  they  alone  possess  the  soul  and  reveal  the  wants 
of  those  who  have  needs  of  gods  and  mysteries,  be¬ 
cause  they  are  inspired.  But  you  produce  the  same 
effect  with  the  voice  only,  and  do  not  require  the  flute: 
that  is  the  difference  between  you  and  him.  When 
we  hear  any  other  speaker,  even  a  very  good  one,  his 
words  produce  absolutely  no  effect  upon  us  in  com¬ 
parison,  whereas  the  very  fragments  of  you  and  your 
words,  even  at  second-hand,  and  however  imperfectly 
repeated,  amaze  and  possess  the  souls  of  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  who  comes  within  hearing  of  them. 
And  if  I  were  not  afraid  that  you  would  think  me 
drunk,  I  would  have  sworn  as  well  as  spoken  to  the 
influence  which  they  have  always  had  and  still  have 
over  me.  For  my  heart  leaps  within  me  more  than 
that  of  any  Corybantian  reveller,  and  my  eyes  rain 
tears  when  I  hear  them.  And  I  observe  that  many 
others  are  affected  in  the  same  way.  I  have  heard 
Pericles  and  other  great  orators,  but  though  I  thought 
that  they  spoke  well,  I  never  had  any  similar  feeling; 
my  soul  was  not  stirred  by  them,  nor  was  I  angry  at 
the  thought  of  my  own  slavish  state.  But  this  Mar¬ 
syas  has  often  brought  me  to  such  a  pass,  that  I  have 
felt  as  if  I  could  hardly  endure  the  life  which  I  am 
leading  (this,  Socrates,  you  admit)  ;  and  I  am  con¬ 
scious  that  if  I  did  not  shut  my  ears  against  him,  and 
fly  from  the  voice  of  the  siren,  he  would  detain  me  until 
I  grew  old  sitting  at  his  feet.  For  he  makes  me  con¬ 
fess  that  I  ought  not  to  live  as  I  do,  neglecting  the 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


349 


wants  of  my  own  soul,  and  busying  myself  with  the 
concerns  of  the  Athenians;  therefore  I  hold  my  ears 
and  tear  myself  away  from  him.  And  he  is  the  only 
person  who  ever  made  me  ashamed,  which  you  might 
think  not  to  be  in  my  nature,  and  there  is  no  one  else 
who  does  the  same.  For  I  know  that  I  can  not  answer 
him  or  say  that  I  ought  not  to  do  as  he  bids,  but 
when  I  leave  his  presence  the  love  of  popularity  gets 
the  better  of  me.  And  therefore  I  run  away  and  fly 
from  him,  and  when  I  see  him  I  am  ashamed  of  what 
I  have  confessed  to  him.  And  many  a  time  I  wish 
that  he  were  dead,  and  yet  I  know  that  I  should  be 
much  more  sorry  than  glad,  if  he  were  to  die :  so  that 
I  am  at  my  wit’s  end. 

And  this  is  what  I  and  many  others  have  suffered 
from  the  flute-playing  of  this  satyr.  Yet  hear  me 
once  more  while  I  show  you  how  exact  the  image  is, 
and  how  marvellous  his  power.  For  I  am  sure  that 
none  of  you  know  him ;  but  I  know  him  and  will  de¬ 
scribe  him,  as  I  have  begun.  See  you  how  fond  he  is 
of  the  fair?  He  is  always  with  them  and  is  always 
being  smitten  by  them,  and  then  again  he  knows  noth¬ 
ing  and  is  ignorant  of  all  things  —  that  is  the  appear¬ 
ance  which  he  puts  on.  Is  he  not  like  a  Silenus  in 
this?  Yes,  surely:  that  is,  his  outer  mask,  which  is 
the  carved  head  of  the  Silenus ;  but  when  he  is  opened, 
wThat  temperance  there  is,  as  I  may  say  to  you,  O  my 
companions  in  drink,  residing  within.  Know  you  that 
beauty  and  wealth  and  honor,  at  which  the  many  won¬ 
der,  are  of  no  account  with  him,  and  are  utterly  de¬ 
spised  by  him:  he  regards  not  at  all  the  persons  who 
are  gifted  with  them;  mankind  are  nothing  to  him; 
all  his  life  is  spent  in  mocking  and  flouting  at  them. 
But  when  I  opened  him,  and  looked  within  at  his  seri¬ 
ous  purpose,  I  saw  in  him  divine  and  golden  images 
of  such  fascinating  beauty  that  I  was  ready  to  do  in 


350 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


a  moment  whatever  Socrates  commanded:  (they  may 
have  escaped  the  observation  of  others,  but  I  saw 
them).  Now  I  thought  that  he  was  seriously  enam¬ 
ored  of  my  beauty,  and  this  appeared  to  be  a  grand 
opportunity  of  hearing  him  tell  what  he  knew,  for  I 
had  a  wonderful  opinion  of  the  attractions  of  my 
youth.  In  the  prosecution  of  this  design,  when  I  next 
went  to  him,  I  sent  away  the  attendant  who  usually 
accompanied  me  (I  will  confess  the  wThole  truth,  and 
beg  you  to  listen;  and  if  I  speak  falsely,  do  you,  Soc¬ 
rates,  expose  the  falsehood).  Well,  he  and  I  were 
alone  together,  and  I  thought  that  when  there  was 
nobody  with  us,  I  should  hear  him  speak  the  language 
of  love  as  lovers  do,  and  I  was  delighted.  Not  a  word ; 
he  conversed  as  usual,  and  spent  the  day  with  me  and 
then  went  away.  Afterwards  I  challenged  him  to 
the  palaestra;  and  he  wrestled  and  closed  with  me 
several  times  alone;  I  fancied  that  I  might  succeed 
in  this  way.  Not  a  bit;  there  was  no  use  in  that. 
Lastly,  as  I  had  failed  hitherto,  I  thought  that  I  must 
use  stronger  measures  and  attack  him  boldly,  as  I  had 
begun,  and  not  give  him  up  until  I  saw  how  the  mat¬ 
ter  stood.  So  I  invited  him  to  supper,  just  as  if  he 
were  a  fair  youth,  and  I  a  designing  lover.  He  was 
not  easily  persuaded  to  come;  he  did,  however,  after 
a  while  accept  the  invitation,  and  when  he  came  the 
first  time,  he  wanted  to  go  away  at  once  as  soon  as 
supper  was  over,  and  I  had  not  the  face  to  detain  him. 
The  second  time,  still  in  pursuance  of  my  design,  after 
we  had  supped,  I  wrent  on  conversing  far  into  the 
night,  and  when  he  wanted  to  go  away,  I  pretended 
that  the  hour  was  late  and  that  he  had  better  remain. 
So  he  lay  down  on  the  next  couch  to  me,  the  same 
on  which  he  had  supped,  and  there  was  no  one  else 
in  the  apartment.  All  this  may  be  told  without  shame 
to  any  one.  But  what  follows  I  could  hardly  tell  you 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


351 


if  I  were  sober.  Yet  as  the  proverb  says,  “  In  vino 
veritas,”  whether  there  is  in  boys  or  not;  and  there¬ 
fore  I  must  speak.  Nor,  again,  should  I  be  justified 
in  concealing  the  lofty  actions  of  Socrates  as  I  come 
to  praise  him.  Moreover  I  have  felt  the  pang;  and 
he  who  has  suffered,  as  they  say,  is  willing  to  tell  his 
fellow-sufferers  only,  as  they  alone  will  be  likely  to 
understand  him,  and  will  not  be  extreme  in  judging 
of  the  sayings  or  doings  which  have  been  wrung  from 
his  agony.  For  I  have  been  bitten  by  the  viper  too; 
I  have  known  in  my  soul,  or  in  my  heart,  or  in  some 
other  part,  that  worst  of  pangs,  more  violent  in  in¬ 
genuous  youth  than  any  serpent’s  tooth,  the  pang  of 
philosophy,  which  will  make  a  man  say  or  do  anything. 
And  you  whom  I  see  around  me,  your  Phaedrus,  your 
Agathon,  your  Eryximachus,  your  Pausanias,  your 
Aristodemus,  your  Aristophanes,  all  of  you,  and  I 
need  not  say  Socrates  himself,  have  all  had  experience 
of  the  same  madness  and  passion  of  philosophy. 
Therefore  listen  and  excuse  my  doings  then  and  my 
sayings  now.  But  let  the  attendants  and  other  pro¬ 
fane  and  unmannered  persons  close  the  doors  of  their 
ears. 

When  the  lamp  was  put  out  and  the  servants  had 
gone  away,  I  thought  that  I  must  be  plain  with  him 
and  have  no  more  ambiguity.  So  I  gave  him  a  shake, 
and  I  said:  “  Socrates,  are  you  asleep?”  “  No,”  he 
said.  “  Do  you  know  what  I  am  meditating?  ” 
“  What  is  that?  ”  he  said.  “  I  think,”  I  replied,  “  that 
of  all  the  lovers  whom  I  have  ever  had  you  are  the 
only  one  who  is  worthy  of  me,  and  you  appear  to  be 
too  modest  to  speak.  Now  I  feel  that  I  should  be  a 
fool  to  refuse  you  this  or  any  other  favor,  and  there¬ 
fore  I  come  to  lay  at  your  feet  all  that  I  have  and  all 
that  my  friends  have,  in  the  hope  that  you  will  assist 
me  in  the  way  of  virtue,  which  I  desire  above  all  things, 


352 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


and  in  which  I  believe  that  you  can  help  me  better 
than  any  one  else.  And  I  am  certainly  of  opinion 
that  I  should  have  more  reason  to  be  ashamed  of 
what  wise  men  would  say  if  I  were  to  refuse  a  favor 
to  such  as  you,  than  of  what  fools  would  say  if  I 
granted  it.”  When  he  heard  this,  he  said  in  his  iron¬ 
ical  manner:  “  Friend  Alcibiades,  you  have  indeed  an 
elevated  aim  if  what  you  say  is  true,  and  if  there 
really  is  in  me  any  power  by  which  you  may  become 
better;  truly  you  must  see  in  me  some  rare  beauty 
of  a  kind  infinitely  higher  than  that  which  I  see  in 
you.  And  if,  seeing  this,  you  mean  to  share  with  me 
and  to  exchange  beauty  for  beauty,  you  will  have 
greatly  the  advantage  of  me;  you  will  gain  real 
beauty  in  return  for  appearance  —  gold  in  exchange 
for  brass.  But  look  again,  sweet  friend,  and  see 
whether  you  are  not  deceived  in  me.  The  mind  begins 
to  grow  critical  when  the  bodily  eye  fails,  and  you 
have  not  come  to  that  yet.”  Hearing  this,  I  said: 
“  I  have  told  you  my  purpose,  which  is  quite  serious, 
and  do  you  consider  what  you  think  best  for  you  and 
me.”  “  That  is  good,”  he  said;  “  at  some  other  time 
then  we  will  consider  and  act  as  seems  best  about  this 
and  about  other  matters.”  When  I  heard  this  answer, 
I  fancied  that  he  was  smitten,  and  that  my  arrows  had 
wounded  him,  and  so  without  waiting  to  hear  more  I 
got  up,  and  throwing  my  coat  about  him  crept  under 
his  threadbare  cloak,  as  the  time  of  year  was  winter, 
and  there  I  lay  during  the  whole  night  having  this 
wonderful  monster  in  my  arms.  You  won’t  deny 
this,  Socrates.  And  yet,  notwithstanding  all  this,  he 
was  so  superior  to  my  solicitations,  so  contemptuous 
and  derisive  and  disdainful  of  my  beauty  which 
really,  as  I  believe,  had  some  attractions  —  hear,  O 
judges;  for  judges  you  shall  be  of  the  haughty  virtue 
of  Socrates  —  that* in  the  morning  when  I  awoke 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


353 


(let  all  the  gods  and  goddesses  be  my  witnesses)  I 
arose  as  from  the  couch  of  a  father  or  an  elder  brother. 

What  do  you  suppose  must  have  been  my  feelings 
after  this  rejection  at  the  thought  of  my  own  dis¬ 
honor?  And  yet  I  could  not  help  wondering  at  his 
natural  temperance  and  self-restraint  and  courage. 

I  never  could  have  thought  that  I  should  have  met 
with  a  man  like  him  in  wisdom  and  endurance. 
Neither  could  I  be  angry  with  him  or  renounce  his 
company,  any  more  than  I  could  hope  to  win  him. 
For  I  well  knew  that  if  Ajax  could  not  be  wounded 
by  steel,  much  less  he  by  money and  I  had  failed  in 
my  only  chance  of  captivating  him.  So  I  wandered 
about  and  was  at  my  wit’s  end ;  no  one  was  ever  more 
hopelessly  enslaved  by  another.  All  this,  as  I  should 
explain,  happened  before  he  and  I  went  on  the  expe¬ 
dition  to  Potidaea;  there  we  messed  together,  and  I 
had  the  opportunity  of  observing  his  extraordinary 
power  of  sustaining  fatigue  and  going  without  food 
when  our  supplies  were  intercepted  at  any  place,  as 
will  happen  with  an  army.  In  the  faculty  of  endur¬ 
ance  he  was  superior  not  only  to  me  but  to  everybody; 
there  was  no  one  to  be  compared  to  him.  Yet  at  a 
festival  he  was  the  only  person  who  had  any  real  pow¬ 
ers  of  enjoyment,  and  though  not  willing  to  drink, 
he  could  if  compelled  beat  us  all  at  that,  and  the  most 
wonderful  thing  of  all  was  that  no  human  being  had 
ever  seen  Socrates  drunk ;  and  that,  if  I  am  not  mis¬ 
taken,  will  soon  be  tested.  His  endurance  of  cold 
was  also  surprising.  There  was  a  severe  frost,  for 
the  winter  in  that  region  is  really  ti  emendous,  and 
everybody  else  either  remained  indoors,  01  if  they 
went  out  had  on  no  end  of  clothing,  and  were  well 
shod,  and  had  their  feet  swathed  in  felt  and  fleeces: 
in  the  midst  of  this,  Socrates,  with  his  bare  feet  on  the 
ice,  and  in  his  ordinary  dress,  marched  bettei  than  any 


354 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


of  the  other  soldiers  who  had  their  shoes  on,  and  they 
looked  daggers  at  him  because  he  seemed  to  despise 
them. 

I  have  told  you  one  tale,  and  now  I  must  tell  you 
another,  which  is  worth  hearing,  of  the  doings  and 
sufferings  of  this  enduring  man  while  he  was  on  the 
expedition.  One  morning  he  was  thinking  about  some¬ 
thing  which  he  could  not  resolve;  and  he  would  not 
give  up,  but  continued  thinking  from  early  dawn  until 
noon  —  there  he  stood  fixed  in  thought ;  and  at  noon 
attention  was  drawn  to  him,  and  the  rumor  ran 
through  the  wondering  crowd  that  Socrates  had  been 
standing  and  thinking  about  something  ever  since  the 
break  of  day.  At  last,  in  the  evening  after  supper, 
some  Ionians  out  of  curiosity  (I  should  explain  that 
this  was  not  in  winter  but  in  summer),  brought  out 
their  mats  and  slept  in  the  open  air  that  they  might 
watch  him  and  see  whether  he  would  stand  all  night. 
There  he  stood  all  night  as  well  as  all  day  and  the 
following  morning;  and  with  the  return  of  light  he 
offered  up  a  prayer  to  the  sun,  and  went  his  way.  I 
will  also  tell,  if  you  please  —  and  indeed  I  am  bound 
to  tell  —  of  his  courage  in  battle;  for  who  but  he 
saved  my  life?  Now  this  was  the  engagement  in 
which  I  received  the  prize  of  valor:  for  I  was  wounded 
and  he  would  not  leave  me,  but  he  rescued  me  and  my 
arms;  and  he  ought  to  have  received  the  prize  of 
valor  which  the  generals  wanted  to  confer  on  me 
partly  on  account  of  my  rank,  and  I  told  them  so 
(this  Socrates  will  not  impeach  or  deny),  but  he  was 
more  eager  than  the  generals  that  I  and  not  he  should 
have  the  prize.  There  was  another  occasion  on  which 
he  was  very  noticeable;  this  was  in  the  flight  of  the 
army  after  the  battle  of  Delium,  and  I  had  a  better 
opportunity  of  seeing  him  than  at  Potidaea  as  I  was 
myself  on  horseback,  and  therefore  comparatively  out 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


355 


of  danger.  He  and  Laches  were  retreating  as  the 
troops  were  in  flight,  and  I  met  them  and  told  them 
not  to  be  discouraged,  and  promised  to  remain  with 
them ;  and  there  you  might  see  him,  Aristophanes,  as 
you  describe,  just  as  he  is  in  the  streets  of  Athens, 
stalking  like  a  pelican,  and  rolling  his  eyes,  calmly 
contemplating  enemies  as  well  as  friends,  and  making 
very  intelligible  to  anybody,  even  from  a  distance, 
that  whoever  attacks  him  will  be  likely  to  meet  with 
a  stout  resistance;  and  in  this  way  he  and  his  com¬ 
panion  escaped  —  for  these  are  the  sort  of  persons 
who  are  never  touched  in  war;  they  only  pursue  those 
who  are  running  away  headlong.  I  particularly  ob¬ 
served  how  superior  he  was  to  Laches  in  presence  of 
mind.  Many  are  the  wonders  of  Socrates  which  I 
might  narrate  in  his  praise;  most  of  his  ways  might 
perhaps  be  paralleled  in  others,  but  the  most  astonish¬ 
ing  thing  of  all  is  his  absolute  unlikeness  to  any  human 
being  that  is  or  ever  has  been.  You  may  imagine 
Brasidas  and  others  to  have  been  like  Achilles;  or  you 
may  imagine  Nestor  and  Antenor  to  have  been  like 
Pericles;  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  other  famous 
men,  but  of  this  strange  being  you  will  never  be  able 
to  find  any  likeness  however  remote,  either  among 
men  who  now  are  or  who  ever  have  been,  except  that 
which  I  have  already  suggested  of  Silenus  and  the 
satyrs;  and  this  is  an  allegory  not  only  of  himself, 
but  also  of  his  words.  For,  although  I  forgot  to  men¬ 
tion  this  before,  his  words  are  ridiculous  when  you 
first  hear  them;  he  clothes  himself  in  language  that 
is  as  the  skin  of  the  wanton  satyr  —  for  his  talk  is  of 
pack-asses  and  smiths  and  cobblers  and  curriers,  and 
he  is  always  repeating  the  same  things  in  the  same 
words,  so  that  an  ignorant  man  who  did  not  know  him 
might  feel  disposed  to  laugh  at  him;  but  he  who 
pierces  the  mask  and  sees  what  is  within  will  find  that 


356 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


they  are  the  only  words  which  have  a  meaning  in  them, 
and  also  the  most  divine,  abounding  in  fair  examples 
of  virtue,  and  of  the  largest  discourse,  or  rather  ex¬ 
tending  to  the  whole  duty  of  a  good  and  honorable 

man. 

This,  friends,  is  my  praise  of  Socrates.  I  have 
added  my  blame  of  him  for  his  ill-treatment  of  me; 
and  he  has  ill-treated  not  only  me,  but  Charmides  the 
son  of  Glaucon,  and  Euthydemus  the  son  of  Diodes, 
and  many  others  in  the  same  way  —  beginning  as 
their  lover  he  has  ended  by  making  them  pay  their 
addresses  to  him.  Wherefore  I  say  to  you,  Agathon, 
“  Be  not  deceived  by  him;  learn  from  me  and  take 
warning,  and  don’t  be  a  fool  and  learn  by  experience, 
as  the  proverb  says. 

When  Alcibiades  had  done  speaking,  there  was  a 
laugh  at  his  plainness  of  speech,  as  he  seemed  to  be 
still  in  love  with  Socrates.  You  are  sober,  Alcibiades, 
said  Socrates,  or  you  would  never  have  gone  about  to 
hide  the  purpose  of  your  satyr’s  praises,  for  all  this 
long  story  is  only  an  ingenious  circumlocution,  the 
point  of  which  comes  in  by  the  way  at  the  end;  you 
want  to  get  up  a  quarrel  between  me  and  Agathon, 
and  your  notion  is  that  I  ought  to  love  you  and  no¬ 
body  else,  and  that  you  and  you  only  ought  to  love 
Agathon.  But  the  plot  of  this  Satyric  or  Silemc 
drama  has  been  detected,  and  you  must  not  allow  him, 
Agathon,  to  set  us  at  variance. 

I  believe  you  are  right,  said  Agathon,  and  I  am 
disposed  to  think  that  his  intention  in  placing  himself 
between  you  and  me  was  only  to  divide  us;  but  he 
shall  gain  nothing  by  that  move,  as  I  will  go  and  lie 
in  the  couch  next  to  you. 

Yes,  yes,  replied  Socrates,  by  all  means  come  here 

and  lie  on  the  couch  below  me. 

Alas,  said  Alcibiades,  how  am  I  fooled  by  this  man ; 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


357 


he  is  determined  to  get  the  better  of  me  at  every  turn. 

I  do  beseech  you,  allow  Agathon  to  lie  between  us. 

Impossible,  said  Socrates,  as  you  praised  me,  and  I 
ought  to  praise  my  neighbor  on  the  right,  he  will  be 
out  of  order  in  praising  me  again  when  he  ought 
rather  to  be  praised  by  me,  and  I  must  entreat  you  to 
consent  to  this,  and  not  be  jealous,  for  I  have  a  great 
desire  to  praise  the  youth. 

Ha!  ha!  cried  Agathon,  I  will  rise  instantly,  that 

I  may  be  praised  by  Socrates. 

The  usual  way,  said  Alcibiades,  where  Socrates  is, 
no  one  else  has  any  chance  with  the  fair,  and  now  how 
readily  has  he  invented  a  specious  reason  for  attract¬ 
ing  Agathon  to  himself. 

Agathon  arose  in  order  that  he  might  take  his  place 
on  the  couch  by  Socrates,  when  suddenly  a  band  of 
revellers  entered,  and  spoiled  the  order  of  the  banquet. 
Some  one  who  was  going  out  having  left  the  door 
open,  they  had  found  their  way  in,  and  made  them¬ 
selves  at  home;  great  confusion  ensued,  and  every  one 
was  compelled  to  drink  large  quantities  of  wine.  Aris- 
todemus  said  that  Eryximachus,  Phaedrus,  and  others 
went  away  —  he  himself  fell  asleep,  and  as  the  nights 
were  long  took  a  good  rest:  he  was  awakened  towards 
daybreak  by  a  crowing  of  cocks,  and  when  he  awoke, 
the  others  were  either  asleep,  or  had  gone  away ;  there 
remained  awake  only  Socrates,  Aristophanes,  and 
Agathon,  who  were  drinking  out  of  a  large  goblet 
which  they  passed  round,  and  Socrates  was  discours¬ 
ing  to  them.  Aristodemus  did  not  hear  the  beginning 
of  the  discourse,  and  he  was  only  half  awake,  but  the 
chief  thing  which  he  remembered,  was  Socrates  insist¬ 
ing  to  the  other  two  that  the  genius  of  comedy  was  the 
same  as  that  of  tragedy,  and  that  the  writer  of  tragedy 
ought  to  be  a  writer  of  comedy  also.  To  this  they  were 
compelled  to  assent,  being  sleepy,  and  not  quite  under- 


358 


THE  SYMPOSIUM 


standing  his  meaning.  And  first  of  all  Aristophanes 
dropped,  and  then,  when  the  day  was  already  dawn¬ 
ing,  Agathon.  Socrates,  when  he  had  put  them  to 
sleep,  rose  to  depart,  Aristodemus,  as  his  manner  was, 
following  him.  At  the  Lyceum  he  took  a  bath  and 
passed  the  day  as  usual;  and  when  evening  came  he 
retired  to  rest  at  his  own  home. 


PHAEDRUS 


/ 


_ 


INTRODUCTION 


The  Phaedrus  is  closely  connected  with  the  Symposium,  and 
may  be  regarded  either  as  introducing  or  following  it.  The  two 
Dialogues  together  contain  the  whole  philosophy  of  Plato  on 
the  nature  of  love,  which  in  the  Republic  and  in  tbe  V»*er  writings 
of  Plato  is  only  introduced  playfully  or  as  a  figure  of  speech. 
But  in  the  Phaedrus  and  Symposium  love  and  philosophy  join 
hands,  and  one  is  an  aspect  of  the  other.  The  spiritual  and  emo¬ 
tional  part  is  elevated  into  the  ideal,  to  which  in  the  Symposium 
mankind  are  described  as  looking  forward,  and  which  in  the 
Phaedrus,  as  well  as  in  the  Phaedo,  they  are  seeking  to  recover 
from  a  former  state  of  existence.  Whether  the  subject  of  the 
Dialogue  is  love  or  rhetoric,  or  the  union  of  the  two,  or  the  rela¬ 
tion  of  philosophy  to  love  and  to  art  in  general,  will  be  hereafter 
considered. 

Phaedrus  has  been  passing  the  day  with  Lysias,  the  celebrated 
rhetorician,  and  is  going  to  refresh  himself  by  taking  a  walk 
outside  the  wall,  when  he  is  met  by  Socrates,  who  professes  that 
he  will  not  leave  him  until  he  has  delivered  up  the  speech  with 
which  Lysias  has  regaled  him,  and  which  he  is  carrying  about 
in  his  mind,  or  more  probably  in  a  book  hidden  under  his  cloak, 
and  is  intending  to  study  as  he  walks.  The  imputation  is  not 
denied,  and  the  two  agree  to  direct  their  steps  out  of  the  public 
way  along  the  stream  of  the  Ilissus  towards  a  plane-tree  which 
is  seen  in  the  distance.  There,  lying  down  amidst  pleasant 
sounds  and  scents,  they  will  read  the  speech  of  Lysias.  The 
country  is  a  novelty  to  Socrates,  who  never  goes  out  of  the  town ; 
and  hence  he  is  full  of  admiration  for  the  beauties  of  nature, 
of  which  he  seems  for  the  first  time  to  be  conscious. 

In  the  course  of  their  walk  Phaedrus  asks  the  opinion  of 
Socrates  respecting  the  local  tradition  of  Boreas  and  Oreithyia. 
Socrates,  after  a  satirical  allusion  to  the  “  rationalizers  ”  of  his 
day,  replies  that  he  has  no  time  for  these  “  nice  ”  interpretations 
of  mythology;  “the  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man,”  who  is 
a  far  more  complex  and  wonderful  being  than  the  serpent  Ty- 
phon.  When  they  have  reached  the  plane-tree,  Phaedrus  pulls 
out  the  speech  and  reads. 


361 


362 


PHAEDRUS 


The  speech  consists  of  a  foolish  paradox  which  is  to  the  effect 
that  the  non-lover  ought  to  be  accepted  rather  than  the  lover  — 
because  he  is  more  rational,  more' agreeable,  more  enduring,  less 
suspicious,  less  hurtful,  less  bt  istful,  less  engrossing,  and  be¬ 
cause  there  are  more  of  them,  and  for  a  great  many  other  reasons 
which  are  equally  unmeaning.  Phaedrus  is  captivated  with  the 
beauty  of  the  periods,  and  wants  to  make  Socrates  say  that  noth¬ 
ing  was  or  ever  could  be  better  written.  Socrates  does  not  think 
much  of  the  matter,  but  then  he  has  only  attended  to  the  form,  and 
in  the  form  he  thinks  that  he  has  detected  repetitions  and  other 
marks  of  haste.  He  can  not  agree  with  Phaedrus  in  the  ex¬ 
treme  value  which  he  sets  upon  this  performance,  because  he  is 
afraid  of  doing  injustice  to  Anacreon  and  Sappho  and  other 
great  writers,  and  is  almost  inclined  to  think  that  he  himself, 
or  rather  some  power  residing  within  him,  could  make  a  speech 
better  than  that  of  Lysias  on  the  same  theme,  and  also  different 
from  his,  if  he  may  be  allowed  to  have  a  few  commonplaces 
which  all  speakers  must  equally  employ. 

Phaedrus  is  delighted  at  the  prospect  of  having  another  speech, 
and  promises  that  he  will  set  up  a  golden  statue  of  Socrates  at 
Delphi,  if  he  keeps  his  word.  Some  raillery  ensues,  and  at 
length  Socrates,  conquered  by  the  threat  that  he  shall  never  hear 
a  speech  of  Lysias  again  unless  he  fulfils  his  promise,  veils  his 
face  and  begins. 

The  first  part  of  his  speech  is  a  somewhat  prosaic  discussion 
of  the  opposition  between  desire  and  opinion  guided  by  reason. 
But  he  has  not  proceeded  far  when  he  fancies  that  he  detects 
in  himself  an  unusual  flow  of  eloquence  —  this  he  can  only  at¬ 
tribute  to  the  inspiration  of  the  place,  which  appears  to  be  dedi¬ 
cated  to  the  nymphs.  Starting  from  the  philosophical  basis  which 
has  been  already  laid  down,  he  ^proceeds  to  show  how  many 
advantages  the  non-lover  has  over  the  lover.  The  one  leads  to 
softness  and  poverty  and  exclusiveness,  and  is  full  of  all  sorts 
of  unpleasantness;  “crabbed  age  and  youth”  have  to  “live 
together,”  and  the  sight  and  the  ways  of  the  old  are  mighty 
disagreeable  to  the  young.  Or  if  they  part  company,  then  the 
spectacle  may  be  seen  of  the  lover  running  away  from  the  be¬ 
loved,  who  pursues  him  with  vain  reproaches,  and  demands  his 
reward  which  the  other  refuses  to  pay.  The  lover  turns  vir¬ 
tuous  when  the  hour  of  payment  arrives,  and  the  beloved  learns 
too  late,  after  all  his  pains  and  disagreeables,  that  as  wolves 
love  lambs  so  lovers  love  their  loves.  Here  is  the  end ;  the 
“  other  ”  or  “  non-lover  ”  part  of  the  speech  had  better  be  under- 


INTRODUCTION  363 

/  / 

r 

stood,  for  if  in  the  censure  of  the  lover  Socrates  has  broken  out 
in  verse,  what  will  he  do  in  his  prakgp  of  -the:  non-lover  ?  He  has 
said  his  say  and  is  preparing  to  go 

Phaedrus  begs  him  to  remain,  at  'Tintil  the  heat  of 

noon  has  passed;  he  thinks  that  they  *tiaay  aS*ayell  have  a  little 
;more  conversation  before  they  go.  has  risen  to 

go,  recognizes  the  oracular  sign  which  forbSd^«1jli^lte>p  depart  until 
he  has  done  penance.  His  conscience  has^Jfeeni^^kened,  and 
like  Stesichorus  over  Helen  he  will  sing  a  palinode  fjor  having 
blasphemed  the  majesty  of  love.  His  palinoqHMHHwie  form 
of  a  myth.  iri  hii*. 

Socrates  begins  his  tale  with  a  glorification  of  ifiadsdes'S*  which 
he  divides  into  four  kinds:  first,  there  is  the  art  of! 
or  prophecy  —  this,  in  a  vein  similar  to  that  of  the  he 

connect iTwith  madness  by  an  etymological  explanation  :(“  ’tis 
all  one  reckoning,  save  the  phrase  is  a  little  variations  ”)  ;  isec- 
ondly,  there  is  the  art  of  purification  by  mysteries;  jthirdly, 
poefrv  or  the  inspiration  of  the  Muses,  without  which  no  man 
can  enter  their  temple.  5U”this  shows  that  madness  is  one  of 
heaven’s  blessings,  and  may  sometimes  be  a  great  deal  better 
than  sense.  There  is  also  a  fourth  kind  of  madness  which  cannot 
be  expHiaed-witho ut  inquiiingjiiii^  of  JthejsoiiL 

The  soul  is  immortal,  for  she  is  the  source  of  all  motion  both 
in  herself  and  in  others.  Of  her  true  and  divine  form  it  would 
be  long  to  tell,  but  she  may  be  described  in  a  figure  as  a  com¬ 
posite  being  made  up  of  a  charioteer  and  a  pair  of  winged  steeds. 
The  steeds  of  the  gods  are  immortal,  but  ours  are  one  mortal 
-and  the  other  immortal.  The  immortal  soul  soars  upwards  into 
"the  heavens,  but  the  mortal  drops  her  plumes  and  is  draggled 
upon  the  earth. 

Now  the  nature  of  the  wifigs  is  to  rise  and  carry  the  down¬ 
ward  element  into  the  upper  world  —  there  to  behold  beauty, 
^wisdom,  goodness,  and  the  other  things  of  God  by  which  the 
■soul  is  nourished.  On  a  certain  day  Zeus  the  lord  of  heaven  goes 
■forth  in  a  winged  chariot;  and  an  array  of  gods  and  demi-gods 
land  of  human  souls  in  their  train,  follows  him.  There  are  glori¬ 
ous  and  blessed  sights  in  the  interior  of  heaven,  and  he  who  will 
ay  freely  behold  them.  The  great  vision  of  all  is  seen  at  the 
:ast  of  the  gods,  when  they  ascend  the  heights  of  heaven  —  all 
it  Hestia,  who  is  left  at  home  to  keep  house.  The  horses  of  the 
ads  glide  readily  upwards  and  stand  upon  the  outside,  and  are 
irried  round  in  the  revolutions  of  the  spheres,  and  gaze  upon  the 
orld  beyond.  But  of  this  world  beyond  the  heavens,  who  can 


364 


PHAEDRUS 


tell?  There  is  an  essence  formless,  colorless,  intangible,  per¬ 
ceived  by  the  mind  onhgtorcling  above  in  the  place  of  true  knowl¬ 
edge.  The  divine  n^nj^Dfcher  revolution  enjoys  this  fair  pros¬ 
pect,  and  beholds  temperance,  and  knowledge  in  their 

everlasting  esseiyp^i^YSe'i  ^fulfilled  wTith  the  sight  of  them  she  | 
returns  home,  jane 1 5. the  t  charioteer  puts  up  the  horses  in  their 
stable,  and  £d4Hj|&3gi  .ambrosia  to  eat  and  nectar  to  drink.  This 
is  the  life  j^the  gods;  and  the  human  soul  tries  to  reach  the 
same  he^46i^h#ifejardly  succeeds;  and  sometimes  the  head  of 
the  chariblfed^jrpes  above,  and  sometimes  sinks  below  the  fair  ! 
visionAjfigHH|Wast  obliged,  after  much  contention,  to  turn  away 
an^lMlM^HPplain  of  truth.  Yet  if  she  has  followed  in  the  train  j 
n&ajMvi qjWpn d  once  beheld  truth  she  is  preserved  harmless,  and 
is  carried  round  in  the  next  revolution  of  the  spheres;  and  if  I 
always  ^following,  and  always  seeing  the  truth,  then  forever 
har-mlfess.  But  if  she  drops  her  wings  and  falls  to  the  earth, 
then  she  takes  the  form  of  man,  and  the  soul  which  has  seen 
most  of  the  truth  passes  into  a  philosopher  or  lover;  that  which 
has  seen  truth  in  the  second  degree,  into  a  king  or  warrior;  the 
third,  into  a  householder  or  money-maker;  the  fourth,  into  a 
gymnast;  the  fifth,  into  a  prophet,  or  mystic;  the  sixth,  into 
a  poet,  or  imitator;  the  seventh,  into  a  husbandman  or  crafts-  I 
man;  the  eighth,  into  a  sophist,  or  demagogue;  the  ninth,  into  I 
a  tyrant.  In  all  these  conditions  he  who  lives  righteously  im-  I 
proves,  and  he  who  lives  unrighteously  deteriorates  his  lot.  Ten  I 
thousand  years  elapse  before  the  souls  of  men  in  general  can  I 
regain  their  first  estate,  and  have  their  wings  restored  to  them.  I 
And  the  soul  of  a  man  may  descend  into  a  beast,  and  return  I 
again  into  the  form  of  man.  But  the  form  of  man  can  only  bell 
acquired  at  all  by  those  who  have  once  beheld  truth,  for  the  soul  I 
of  man  alone  apprehends  the  universal;  and  this  is  the  recollec-  I 
tion  of  that  knowledge  which  she  attained  when  in  the  company  j 
of  the  gods.  At  the  end  of  every  thousand  years  the  soul  ha^l 
another  choice,  and  may  go  upwards  or  downwards.  Only  thJj 
soul  of  a  philosopher  or  loVer  who  has  three  times  in  successioiB 
chosen  the  better  life  may  receive  wings  and  go  her  way  in  threJI 
thousand  years. 

For  the  soul  in  her  own  nature  having  the  vision  of  true  beixB 
remembers  in  her  condition  here  those  glorious  sights  of  justiB 
and  temperance  and  wisdom  and  truth  which  she  once  gazed  up* 
when  in  company  with  the  heavenly  choir.  Then  she  celebratB 
holy  mysteries  and  beheld  blessed  apparitions  shining  in  puB 
light,  herself  pure  and  not  as  yet  entombed  in  the  oyster-sheB 


INTRODUCTION 


365 


of  the  body.  And  still  she  is  eager  to  depart,  and  like  a  bird 
is  fluttering  and  looking  upwards,  and  is  therefore  esteemed 
mad.  Such  a  light  of  other  days  is  spread  over  her  when  she 
remembers  that  beauty  which  alone  of  the  ideas  has  any  visible 
representation  on  earth.  For  wisdom  has  no  outward  form,  and 
is  “  too  dazzling  bright  for  mortal  eye.”  Now  the  corrupted 
nature,  when  blindly  excited  by  the  vision  of  beauty,  only  rushes 
on  to  enjoy,  and  wallows  like  a  quadruped  in  sensual  pleasures. 
But  the  true  mystic,  who  has  seen  the  many  sights  of  bliss,  when 
he  beholds  a  godlike  form  or  face  is  ravished  with  delight,  and 
if  he  were  not  afraid  of  being  thought  mad  he  would  fall  down 
and  worship.  Then  the  stiffened  wing  begins  to  relax  and  grow 
again.  At  the  sight  of  earthly  beauty  the  memory  of  the  heav¬ 
enly  is  recalled;  desire  which  has  been  imprisoned,  pours  over 
the  soul  of  the  lover;  the  germ  of  the  wing  unfolds,  and  stings 
and  pangs  at  birth,  like  the  cutting  of  teeth,  are  everywhere  felt. 
Father  and  mother,  and  goods  and  laws,  and  proprieties  are 
nothing  to  him;  his  beloved  is  his  physician,  who  can  alone  cure 
his  pain.  An  apocryphal  sacred  writer  says  that  mortals  call 
him  love,  but  the  immortals  call  him  dove,  or  the  winged  one,  in 
order  to  represent  the  force  of  his  wings  —  at  any  rat^this  is 
his  nature.  Now  the  characters  of  lovers  depend  upon*ths  god 
whom  they  followed  in  the  other  world,  and  they  choose  their 
loves  in  this  world  accordingly.  The  followers  of  Ares  are  fierce 
and  violent;  those  of  Zeus  seek  out  some  philosophical  and  im¬ 
perial  nature;  the  attendants  of  Here  find  a  royal  love;  and  in 
like  manner  the  followers  of  every  god  seek  a  love  who  is  in  his 
likeness,  and  they  communicate  to  him  the  nature  which  they 
have  received  from  their  god.  The  manner  in  which  they  take 
their  love  is  as  follows :  — 

I  told  you  about  the  charioteer  and  two  steeds,  the  one  a  noble 
animal  who  is  guided  by  word  and  admonition  only,  the  other  an 
ill-looking  villain  who  will  hardly  yield  to  blow  or  spur.  To¬ 
gether  all  three,  who  are  a  figure  of  the  soul,  approach  the 
vision  of  love.  And  now  a  conflict  begins.  The  ill-conditioned 
steed  rushes  on  to  enjoy,  but  the  charioteer,  who  beholds  the 
beloved  with  awe,  falls  back  in  adoration,  and  forces  both  the 
steeds  on  their  haunches ;  again  the  evil  steed  rushes  forwards 
and  pulls  shamelessly.  Then  a  still  more  fearful  conflict  ensues ; 
the  charioteer  dropping  at  the  very  start  jerks  violently  the  bit 
from  the  clenched  teeth  of  the  brute,  and  pulling  harder  than 
ever  at  the  reins,  covers  his  tongue  and  jaws  with  blood,  and 
forces  him  to  rest  his  hocks  and  haunches  with  pain  upon  the 


366 


PHAEDRUS 


ground.  When  this  has  happened  several  times,  the  villain  is 
tamed  and  humbled,  and  from  that  time  forward  the  soul  of  the 
lover  follows  the  beloved  in  modesty  and  holy  fear.  And  now 
their  bliss  is  consummated;  the  same  image  of  love  dwells  in  the 
breast  of  either ;  and  if  they  have  self-control,  they  pass  their 
lives  in  the  greatest  happiness  which  is  attainable  by  man  — 
they  live  masters  of  themselves  and  conquer  in  one  of  the  three 
heavenly  victories.  But  if  they  choose  the  lower  life  of  ambition 
they  may  still  have  a  happy  destiny,  though  inferior,  because 
they  have  not  the  approval  of  the  whole  soul.  At  last  they  leave 
the  body  and  proceed  on  their  pilgrim’s  progress,  and  those  who 
have  once  begun  can  never  go  back.  When  the  time  comes  they 
receive  their  wings  and  fly  away,  and  the  lovers  have  the  same 
wings. 

Socrates  concludes :  — 

These  are  the  blessings  of  love,  and  thus  I  have  made  my  recan¬ 
tation  in  finer  language  than  before,  but  this  was  only  in  order 
to  please  Phaedrus.  If  I  said  what  was  wrong  at  first,  please 
to  attribute  my  error  to  Lysias,  who  ought  to  study  philosophy 
instead  of  rhetoric,  and  then  he  will  not  mislead  his  disciple 
Phaedrus. 

Phaedrus  is  afraid  that  he  will  lose  conceit  of  Lysias,  and  that 
Lysias  will  be  out  of  conceit  with  himself,  and  leave  off  making 
speeches,  as  the  politicians  have  been  deriding  him.  Socrates  is 
of  opinion  that  there  is  small  danger  of  this,  and  that  the  politi¬ 
cians  are  themselves  the  great  rhetoricians  of  the  age,  who  desire 
to  obtain  immortality  by  the  authorship  of  laws,  and  therefore 
there  can  be  no  disgrace,  nothing  with  which  anybody  could 
reproach  Lysias  in  being  a  writer,  but  there  may  be  disgrace  in 
being  a  bad  one. 

And  what  is  good  or  bad  writing  or  speaking?  There  is  time 
to  consider  that  question.  For  by  the  discussion  of  such  ques¬ 
tions  man  lives,  and  not  by  the  indulgence  of  bodily  pleasures. 
And  the  grasshoppers  who  are  chirruping  around  may  carry  our 
words  to  the  Muses,  who  are  their  patronesses ;  for  the  grasshop¬ 
pers  were  human  beings  themselves  in  a  world  before  the  Muses, 
and  when  the  Muses  came  they  died  of  hunger  for  the  love  of 
song.  And  they  carry  to  them  in  heaven  the  report  of  those 
who  honor  them  on  earth. 

The  first  rule  of  good  speaking  is  to  know  and  speak  truth; 
true  art  is  truth,  says  a  Spartan  proverb,  whereas  rhetoric  is 
a  mode  of  enchanting  the  soul,  which  makes  things  appear  good 
and  evil,  like  and  unlike,  according  to  the  fancy  of  the  speaker. 


i 


CTION 

*  *  S  Jf*  ‘.*X 

>* »-  yj'y* 3.  f 


•  4*5 


JV-’W.  US 


^:tT  {'vi  ' 

i-  - 

Stilly  mankind  are  deceiflBIBraHftjll  at' once,  but  by  degrees,  and 
therefore  he  who  would  SWaj^ii&gose  on  others  or  escape  im¬ 
position  must  know  the  truSf  *° 

Socrates  then  proposes  tfflKk  <fch<$yJ  %hall  use  the  two  speeches 
as  illustrations  of  the  art  ofiwi^ptfc'hic;  first  distinguishing  be¬ 
tween  the  debatable  and  undis}Mt2|d-fC^?tes  of  subjects.  In  the 
debatable  class  there  ought  to^fe*o#f  definition  of  all  disputed 
matters.  But  there  was  no  sucru  dotjflition  in  the  speech  of 
Lysias;  nor  is  there  any  order  or  effnft Action  in  his  words  any 
more  than  in  a  nursery  rhyme.  Wit&  tfei$>lh«*compares  the  reg¬ 
ular  divisions  of  the  other  speech,  whk$r  NtfaS  fiis  own  (and  yet 
not  his  own,  for  the  local  deities  must  fifc^e  inspired  him).  This 
“  fancy  ”  of  his  will  be  found  to  embody8it>^i|)jtdnciples ;  first, 
that  of  synthesis  or  the  comprehension  in  a  whole ; 

secondly,  analysis,  or  the  resolution  of  th^o  wfocPte  into  parts. 
These  are  the  processes  of  division  and  gena*riti£afctori  which  are 
so  dear  to  the  dialectician,  that  king  of  men.  Blit  this  4s  dialectic 
and  not  rhetoric;  of  which  the  remains  are  but  Scanty order 
and  arrangement  have  been  subtracted.  ThereM©*  ntffcifi&g;  teft 
but  a  heap  of  “  ologies  ”  and  other  technical  teri^Pi^  rhiiPtid  fey 
Theodorus,  E venus,  Tisias,  Gorgias,  and  others- 
for  everything,  and  who  teach  how  to  be  short  or  l0nf>>al;  p^&s&re. 
Prodicus  showed  his  good  sense  in  saying  that  there  b 

thing  than  either  being  short  or  long,  which  was 'to' bS^pL'.'iuCviU- 
venient  length.  °  ^hl 

Still,  notwithstanding  the  absurdities*  of  Bolus  and  fifners, 
rhetoric  has  great  power  in  public  assemblies.  This,  however, 
is  not  given  by  these  technical  rules,  but  is  the  gift  of  genius. 
The  real  art  is  always  being  confused  by  rhetoricians  with  the 
preliminaries  of  the  art.  The  perfection  of  oratory  is  the  per¬ 
fection  of  all  things;  but  for  this  the  art  of  rhetoric  can  do  little, 
and  the  art  which  does  this  little  is  of  another  kind  from  that 
which  is  taught  by  the  rhetoricians. 

Pericles,  the  most  accomplished  of  all  speakers,  derived  his 
art  not  from  rhetoric  but  from  the  philosophy  of  nature  which 
he  learned  from  Anaxagoras.  The  true  rhetoric  is  like  medicine, 
and  the  rhetorician  has  to  consider  the  natures  of  men's  souls  as 
the  physician  considers  the  natures  of  their  bodies.  Such  and 
such  persons  are  to  be  affected  in  this  way,  such  and  such  others 
in  that;  he  must  know  the  times  and  the  seasons  for  saying  this 
or  that.  This  is  not  an  easy  task,  and  this,  if  there  be  such  an 
art,  is  the  art  of  rhetoric. 

I  know  that  there  are  some  professors  of  the  art  who  maintain 


that  probability  is 
probability  is  engendered 


n 

uitr»K  But  we  maintain  that 

_ _ _  __  JEMBgjKs  of  the  truth  which  is 

best  attained  by  the  knowledge  c tf  truth,  and  that  the  aim  of 

the  good  man  should  nofeUcjitD  -$»ease  or  persuade  his  fellow- 
servants,  but  to  pleasa'i&&i<$oad  masters  who  are  the  gods. 
Rhetoric  has  a  fair  begtomgt#a  this.  x 

Enough  of  the  art  let  us  now  proceed  to  consider 

the  true  use  of  wjjitJngobflhere  is  an  old  Egyptian  tale  of 
Theuth,  the  invent©# -j?*fci(Writing,  showing  his  invention  to  the 
god  Thamuz,  wh^iJtebll  Mm  that .  he  would  only  spoil  men’s 
memories  and  take  -aw^j-ftheir  understandings.  From  this  tale, 
which  young  Jtejpmfcswiu  probably  scorn,  may  be  gathered  the 
lesson  that  ^tifi^g Jisfrnferior  to  speech.  For  writing  is  like  a 
picture  whichdofttij  <|iye  no  answer  to  a  question,  and  has  only  a 
deceitful  Utetocfc  living  creature.  It  has  no  power  of  adap¬ 
tation,  bufc<5$3f$  iib«  same  words  for  all.  It  is  a  sort  of  bastard 
and  notii son  of  knowledge,  and  when  an  attack  is 
^nade  illegitimate  progeny  neither  the  parent  nor  any 

one  tJslbiS:  to  defend  it.  The  husbandman  will  not  seriously 

^  his  seed  in  such  a  hot-bed  or  garden  of  Adonis; 

he  sow  in  the  natural  soil  of  the  human  soul  which 

jdt-prthi-. flMtkirth :  and  he  will  anticipate  this  natural  process 
jB^rjti&g,  it  at  *11,  only  as  a  remedy  against  old  age.  The 
uefwth  will  bft  far  nobler,  and  bring  forth  fruit  not  only 
irn  bis  town  but  in  other  minds. 

C&I  conclusion  of  the', whole  matter  is  just  this,  —  that  until 
a  man  knows  the  truth,  and  the  manner  of  adapting  the  truth  to 
y  the  natures  of  other  men,  he  can  not  be  a  good  orator ;  also,  that 
the  living  is  better  than  the  written  word,  and  that  the  principles 
of  justice  and  truth  when  delivered  by  word  of  mouth  are  the 
legitimate  offspring  of  a  man’s  own  bosom,  and  their  lawful 
descendants  take  up  their  abode  in  others.  Such  an  orator  as  he 
is  who  has  them,  you  and  I  would  fain  become.  And  to  all  com¬ 
posers  in  the  world  who  are  poets,  orators,  legislators,  we  hereby 
announce  that  if  their  compositions  are  based  upon  these  prin¬ 
ciples  then  they  are  not  only  poets,  orators,  statesmen,  but  phi¬ 
losophers.  All  the  rest  are  mere  flatterers  and  putters  together 
of  words.  This  is  the  message  which  Phaedrus  undertakes  to 
carry  to  Lysias  from  the  local  deities,  and  Socrates  will  himself 
carry  a  similar  message  to  his  favorite  Isocrates,  whose  future 
distinction  as  a  great  rhetorician  he  prophesies.  The  heat  of  the 
day  has  passed  and,  after  offering  up  a  prayer  to  Pan  and  the 
nymphs,  Socrates  and  Phaedrus  depart. 


INTRODUCTION  369 

There  are  two  principal  controversies  which  have  been  raised 
about  the  Phaedrus;  the  first  relates  to  the  subject,  the  second 
to  the  date  of  the  Dialogue. 

There  seems  to  be  a  notion  that  the  work  of  a  great  artist  like 
Plato  could  not  fail  in  unity,  and  that  the  unity  of  a  dialogue 
requires  a  single  subject.  But  the  conception  of  unity  really 
applies  in  very  different  degrees  and  ways  to  different  kinds  of 
art;  to  a  statue,  for  example,  far  more  than  to  any  kind  of 
literary  composition,  and  to  some  species  of  literature  far  more 
than  to  others.  Nor  does  the  dialogue  appear  to  be  a  style  of 
composition  in  which  the  requirement  of  unity  is  most  stringent ; 
nor  should  the  idea  of  unity  derived  from  one  sort  of  art 
be  hastily  transferred  to  another.  The  double  titles  of  several 
of  the  Platonic  Dialogues  seem  to  indicate  that  this  severer  unity 
was  not  attempted  by  Plato.  The  Republic  is  divided  between 
the  search  after  justice  and  the  construction  of  the  ideal  state; 
the  Parmenides  between  the  criticism  of  the  Platojiic  ideas  and 
of  the  Eleatic  one  or  being;  the  Gorgias  between  $fre  art  of 
speaking  and  the  nature  of  the  good ;  the  Sophist  between  the 
detection  of  the  Sophist  and  the  correlation  of  ideas.  \  The 
Theaetetus,  the  Politicus,  and  the  Philebus,  have  also  digressions 
which  are  but  remotely  connected  with  the  main  subject. 

Thus  the  comparison  of  Plato’s  other  writings,  as  *sq11  as  the 
reason  of  the  thing,  lead  us  to  the  conclusion  that  we  are  not  to 
expect  to  find  one  idea  pervading  a  whole  work,  but  one,  two, 
or  more,  as  the  invention  of  the  writer  may  suggest  or  his  fancy 
wander.  If  each  dialogue  were  confined  to  the  development  of  a 
single  idea,  this  would  appear  on  the  face  of  the  dialogue,  nor 
could  any  controversy  be  raised  as  to  whether  the  Phaedrus 
treated  of  love  or  rhetoric.  But  the  truth  is  that  Plato  subjects 
himself  to  no  rule  of  this  sort.  Like  every  great  artist  he  gives 
unity  of  form  to  the  different  and  apparently  distracting  topics 
which  he  brings  together.  He  works  freely  and  is  not  to  be 
supposed  to  have  arranged  every  part  of  the  dialogue  before 
he  begins  to  write.  He  fastens  or  weaves  together  the  frame  of 

Ihig  discourse  loosely  and  imperfectly,  and  which  is  the  warp 
Htt^which  is  the  woof  is  not  always  easy  to  determine. 

TheL subjects  of  the  Phaedrus  (exclusive  of  the  short  introduc¬ 
tory  passage  about  mythology  which  is  suggested  by  the  local 
tradition)  are  first  the  false  or  conventional  art  of  rhetoric; 
k&oni31y$love  or  the  inspiration  of  beauty  and  knowledge  which 
is  describe^  as  madness;  thirdly,  dialectic  or  the  art  of  composi¬ 
tion  and  division ;  fourthly,  the  true  rhetoric,  which  is  based  upon 

Hi 


370 


PHAEDRUS 

4 


dialectic;  fifthly,  the  superiority  of  the  spoken  over  the  written 
word.  The  continuous  thread  which  appears  and  reappears 
throughout  is  rhetoric;  this  is  the  ground  into  which  the  rest  of 
the  Dialogue  is  inlaid,  in  parts  embroidered  with  fine  words  “  in 
order  to  please  Phaedrus.”  The  speech  of  Lysias,  and  the  first 
speech  of  Socrates  are  examples  of  the  false  rhetoric,  as  the 
second  speech  of  Socrates  is  adduced  as  an  instance  of  the  true. 
But  the  true  rhetoric  is  based  upon  dialectic,  and  dialectic  is  a 
sort  of  inspiration  akin  to  love;  they  are  two  aspects  of  philos¬ 
ophy  in  which  the  technicalities  of  rhetoric  are  absorbed.  Thus 
the  example  becomes  also  the  deeper  theme  of  discourse*  The 
true  knowledge  of  things  in 'heaven  and  earth  is  based  upon 
enthusiasm  or  love  of  the  ideas;  and  the  true  order  of  speech  or 
writing  proceeds  according  to  them.  Love,  again,  has  three 
degrees :  first,  of  interested  love  corresponding  to  the  convention¬ 
alities  of  rhetoric;  secondly,  of  disinterested  or  mad  love,  fixed 
on  objects  of»sense  and  answering,  perhaps,  to  poetry;  thirdly, 
of  disinterested  love  directed  towards  the  unseen,  answering  to 
dialectj(f  or  the  science  of  the  ideas.  Lastly,  the  art  of  rhetoric 
in  the?  lower  sense  is  found  to  rest  on  a  knowledge  of  the  natures 
an#  characters  of  men,  which  Socrates  at  the  commencement  of 
the  Dialogue  has  described  as  his  own  peculiar  study. 

Thus  amid  the  appearance  of  discord  a  very  tolerable  degree 
of  uniformity  begins  to  arise;  there  are  many  threads  of  con¬ 
nection  which  are  not  visible  at  first  sight.  At  the  same  time 
the  Phaedrus,  although  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  Platonic 
dialogues,  may  be  admitted  to  have  more  of  the  character  of  a 
“  tour  de  force,”  and  has  certainly  more  of  the  “  quidlibet 
audendi  potestas  ”  than  any  other. 

The  first  speech  is  composed  “  in  that  balanced  style  in  which 
the  wise  love  to  talk.”  The  characteristics  of  rhetoric  are  in¬ 
sipidity,  mannerism,  and  monotonous  parallelism  of  clauses. 
There  is  more  rhythm  than  reason;  the  creative  power  of  im¬ 
agination  is  wanting. 

“  ’Tis  Greece,  but  living  Greece  no  more.” 

Plato  has  seized  by  anticipation  the  spirit  which  hung  over 
Greek  literature  for  a  thousand  years  afterwards.  Yet  doubtless 
there  were  some  who,  like  Phaedrus,  felt  a  delight  in  the  har¬ 
monious  cadence  and  the  pedantic  reasoning  of  the  rhetoricians 
newly  imported  from  Sicily,  which  had  ceased  to  ber  aw^Kenea 
in  them  by  really  great  works,  such  as  the  poems  of  Anacreon  or 
Sappho  or  the  orations  of  Pericles.  That  the  fir  it  speech  wasj 


I 


INTRODUCTION 


371 


really  written  by  Lysias  is  improbable.  Like  the  poem  of  Solon, 
or  the  story  of  Thamuz  and.  Theuth,  or  the  funeral  oration  of 
Aspasia  (if  genuine),  or  the  pretence  of  Socrates  in  the  Cratylus 
that  his  knowledge  of  philology  is  derived  from  Euthyphro,  the 
invention  is  really  due  to  the  imagination  of  Plato,  and  may  be 
compared  to  the  parodies  of  the  Sophists  in  the  Protagoras. 
Numerous  fictions  of  this  sort  occur  in  the  dialogues,  and  the 
gravity  of  Plato  has  sometimes  imposed  upon  his  commentators. 
The  introduction  of  a  considerable  writing  of  another  would  seem 
not  to  be  in  keeping  with  a  great  work  of  art,  and  has  no  par¬ 
allel  elsewhere. 

In  the  second  speech  Socrates  is  exhibited  as  beating  the  rhet¬ 
oricians  at  their  own  weapons;  he  “an  unpractised  man  and 
they  masters  of  the  art.”  True  to  his  character  he  must,  how¬ 
ever,  profess  that  the  speech  which  he  makes  is  not  his  own,  for 
he  knows  nothing  of  himself.  The  superiority  of  this  speech 
over  the  first  seems  to  consist  chiefly  in  a  better  arrangement 
of  the  topics ;  a  lesser  merit  is  the  greater  liveliness  of  Socrates, 
which  hurries  him  into  verse  and  relieves  the  monotony  of  the 
style ;  and  he  gives  an  apparent  weight  to  his  words  by  going 
back  to  general  maxims. 

Both  speeches  are  strongly  condemned  by  Socrates  as  sinful 
and  blasphemous  towards  the  god  Love,  and  as  worthy  only  of 
some  haunt  of  sailors  to  which  good  manners  were  unknown. 
The  meaning  of  this  and  other  wild  language  to  the  same  effect, 
which  is  introduced  by  way  of  contrast  to  the  formality  of  the 
two  speeches  (Socrates  has  a  sense  of  relief  when  he  has  escaped 
from  the  trammels  of  rhetoric)  seems  to  be  that  the  two  speeches 
proceed  upon  the  supposition  that  love  is  and  ought  to  be 
interested,  and  that  no  such  thing  as  a  real  or  disinterested 
passion,  which  would  be  at  the  same  time  lasting,  could  be  con¬ 
ceived. 

This  is  what  Socrates  proposes  to  recant  in  the  famous  myth, 
which  is  a  sort  of  parable,  and  like  other  parables  ought  not  to 
receive  too  minute  an  interpretation.  In  all  such  allegories  there 
is  a  great  deal  which  is  merely  ornamental,  and  the  interpreter 
has  to  separate  the  important  from  the  unimportant.  Socrates 
himself  has  given  the  right  clue  when,  in  using  his  own  discourse 
afterwards  as  the  text  for  his  examination  of  rhetoric,  he  char¬ 
acterizes  it  as  a  “  partly  true  and  tolerably  credible  mythus, 
in  which  amid  poetical  figures,  order  and  arrangement  were  not 
forgotten. 

The  soul  is  described  in  magnificent  language  as  the  self- 


372 


PHAEDRUS 


moved  and  the  source  of  motion  in  all  other  things.  This  is  the 
philosophical  theme  or  proem  of  the  whole.  But  ideas  must  be 
given  through  something,  and  under  the  pretext  that  to  realize 
the  true  nature  of  the  soul  would  be  not  only  tedious  but  impos¬ 
sible,  we  at  once  pass  on  to  describe  the  souls  of  gods  as  well 
as  men  under  the  figure  of  two  winged  steeds  and  a  charioteer. 
No  connection  is  traced  between  the  soul  as  the  great  motive 
power  and  the  triple  soul  which  is  thus  imaged.  There  is  no 
difficulty  in  seeing  that  the  charioteer  represents  the  reason,  or 
that  the  black  horse  is  the  symbol  of  the  sensual  or  concupiscent 
element  of  human  nature.  The  white  horse  also  represents  ra¬ 
tional  impulse,  but  the  description,  “  a  lover  of  honor  and  mod¬ 
esty  and  temperance,  and  a  follower  of  true  glory,”  though 
kindred,  does  not  at  once  recall  the  “  spirit  ”  of  the  Republic. 
The  two  steeds  really  correspond  in  a  figure  more  nearly  to  the 
appetitive  and  moral  or  semi-rational  soul  of  Aristotle.  And 
thus  for  the  first  time,  perhaps,  in  the  history  of  philosophy,  we 
have  represented  to  us  the  threefold  division  of  psychology. 
The  image  of  the  charioteer  and  the  steeds  has  been  compared 
with  a  similar  image  which  occurs  in  the  verses  of  Parmenides; 
but  it  is  important  to  remark  that  the  horses  of  Parmenides  have 
no  allegorical  meaning,  and  that  the  poet  is  only  describing  his 
own  approach  in  a  chariot  to  the  regions  of  light  and  the  house 
of  the  goddess  of  truth. 

The  triple  soul  has  had  a  previous  existence,  in  which  follow¬ 
ing  in  the  train  of  some  god,  from  whom  she  derived  her  char¬ 
acter,  she  beheld  partially  and  imperfectly  the  vision  of  absolute 
truth.  All  her  after  existence,  passed  in  many  forms  of  men 
and  animals,  is  spent  in  regaining  this.  In  the  various  stages 
of  this  long  struggle  she  is  sorely  let  and  hindered  by  the  animal 
desires  of  the  inferior  or  concupiscent  steed.  Again  and  again 
she  beholds  the  flashing  beauty  of  the  beloved.  But  before  that 
vision  can  be  finally  enjoyed  the  animal  desires  must  be  sub- 
j  ected. 

The  moral  or  spiritual  element  in  man  is  represented  by  the 
immortal  steed  which,  like  Ov/aos  in  the  Republic,  always  sides 
with  the  reason.  Both  are  dragged  out  of  their  course  by  the 
furious  impulses  of  desire.  In  the  end  something  is  conceded  to 
the  desires,  after  they  have  been  finally  humbled  and  overpow¬ 
ered.  And  yet  the  way  of  philosophy,  or  perfect  love  of  the 
unseen  is  total  abstinence  from  bodily  delights.  “  But  all  men 
can  not  receive  this  saying:  ”  in  the  lower  life  of  ambition  they 
may  be  taken  off  their  guard  and  stoop  to  folly  unawares,  and 


INTRODUCTION 


373 


then,  although  they  do  not  attain  to  the  highest  bliss,  yet  if  they 
have  once  conquered  they  may  be  happy  enough. 

The  language  of  the  Meno  and  the  Phaedo  as  well  as  of  the 
Phaedrus,  seems  to  show  that  at  one  time  of  his  life  Plato  was 
quite  serious  in  maintaining  a  former  state  of  existence.  His 
mission  was  to  realize  the  abstract;  in  that  all  good  and  truth, 
all  the  hopes  of  this  and  another  life  seemed  to  centre.  It  was 
another  kind  of  knowledge  to  him  —  a  second  world  distinct 
from  that  of  sense,  which  seemed  to  exist  within  him  far  more 
truly  than  the  fleeting  objects  of  sense  which  are  without  him. 
When  we  are  once  able  to  imagine  the  intense  power  which 
abstract  ideas  exercised  over  the  mind  of  Plato,  we  see  that  there 
was  no  more  difficulty  to  him  in  realizing  the  eternal  existence 
of  them  and  of  the  human  minds  which  were  associated  with 
them  —  in  the  past  and  future  than  in  the  present.  The  diffi¬ 
culty  was  not  how  they  could  exist,  but  how  they  could  fail  to 
exist.  In  the  attempt  to  regain  this  “  saving  ”  knowledge  of 
the  ideas,  the  sense  was  found  to  be  as  great  an  enemy  as  the 
desires;  and  hence  two  things  which  to  us  seem  quite  distinct 
are  inextricably  blended  in  the  representation  of  Plato. 

Thus  far  we  may  believe  that  Plato  was  serious  in  his  concep¬ 
tion  of  the  soul  as  a  motive  power,  in  his  reminiscence  of  a 
former  state  of  being,  in  his  elevation  of  the  reason  over  sense 
and  passion,  and  perhaps  in  his  doctrine  of  transmigration. 
Was  he  equally  serious  in  the  rest?  For  example,  are  we  to 
attribute  his  tripartite  division  of  the  soul  to  the  gods  ?  Or  is 
this  merely  assigned  to  them  by  way  of  parallelism  with  men? 
The  latter  is  the  more  probable;  for  the  horses  of  the  gods  are 
both  white,  i.  e.  their  every  impulse  is  in  harmony  with  reason ; 
their  dualism,  on  the  other  hand,  only  carries  out  the  figure  of 
the  chariot.  Is  he  serious,  again,  in  regarding  love  as  “  a  mad¬ 
ness?  ”  That  seems  to  arise  out  of  the  antithesis  to  the  former 
conception  of  love.  At  the  same  time  he  appears  to  intimate 
here,  as  in  the  Ion,  Apology,  Meno,  and  elsewhere,  that  there 
is  a  faculty  in  man,  whether  to  be  termed  in  modern  language 
genius,  or  inspiration,  or  idealism,  which  can  not  be  reduced  to 
rule  and  measure.  Perhaps,  too,  he  is  ironically  repeating  the 
common  language  of  mankind  about  philosophy,  and  is  turning 
their  jest  into  a  sort  of  earnest.  Or  is  he  serious  in  holding  that 
each  soul  bears  the  character  of  a  god?  Perhaps  he  had  no 
other  account  to  give  of  the  differences  of  human  characters  to 
which  he  afterwards  refers.  It  seems  to  be  characteristic  of 
the  irony  of  Socrates  to  mix  up  sense  and  nonsense  in  such  a 


374 


PHAEDRUS 


way  that  no  exact  line  can  be  drawn  between  them.  And  allegory 
helps  to  increase  this  sort  of  confusion. 

As  is  often  the  case  in  the  parables  and  prophecies  of  Scrip¬ 
ture,  the  meaning  is  allowed  to  break  through  the  figure,  and 
the  details  are  not  always  consistent.  When  the  charioteers  and 
their  steeds  stand  upon  the  dome  of  heaven  they  behold  the 
intangible,  invisible  essences  which  are  not  objects  of  sight. 
This  is  because  the  force  of  language  can  no  further  go.  Nor 
can  we  dwell  much  on  the  circumstance,  that  at  the  completion 
of  ten  thousand  years  all  are  to  return  to  the  place  from  whence 
they  came;  because  he  also  represents  this  as  dependent  on 
their  own  good  conduct  in  the  successive  stages  of  existence. 
Nor  again  can  we  attribute  anything  to  the  accidental  inference 
which  would  also  follow,  that  even  a  tyrant  may  live  righteously 
in  the  condition  of  life  to  which  fate  has  called  him  (“  he  aiblins 
might,  I  dinna  ken”).  But  this  would  be  much  at  variance 
with  Plato  himself  and  with  Greek  notions  generally.  He  is 
much  more  serious  in  distinguishing  men  from  animals  by  their 
recognition  of  the  universal  which  they  have  known  in  a  former 
state,  and  in  denying  that  this  gift  of  reason  can  ever  be  oblit¬ 
erated  or  lost.  In  the  language  of  some  modern  theologians  he 
might  be  said  to  maintain  the  “  final  perseverance  ”  of  those 
who  have  entered  on  their  pilgrim’s  progress.  Other  intima¬ 
tions  of  a  “  metaphysic  ”  or  “  theology  ”  of  the  future  may  also 
be  discerned  in  him:  (1)  The  moderate  predestinarianism  which 
here,  as  in  the  Republic,  acknowledges  the  element  of  chance 
in  human  life,  and  yet  asserts  the  freedom  and  responsibility  of 
man;  (2)  The  recognition  of  a  moral  as  well  as  an  intellectual 
principle  in  man  under  the  image  of  an  immortal  steed;  (3)  The 
notion  that  the  divine  nature  exists  by  the  contemplation  of 
ideas  of  virtue  and  justice  —  or,  in  other  words,  the  assertion 
of  the  essentially  moral  nature  of  God;  (4)  Again,  there  is  the 
hint  that  human  life  is  a  life  of  aspiration  only,  and  that  the 
true  ideal  is  not  to  be  found  in  art;  (5)  There  occurs  the  first 
trace  of  the  distinction  between  certain  and  contingent  matter; 
(6)  The  conception  of  the  soul  itself  as  the  motive  power  and 
reason  of  the  universe. 

The  conception  of  the  philosopher,  or  the  philosopher  and 
lover  in  one,  as  a  sort  of  madman,  may  be  compared  with  the 
Republic  and  Theaetetus,  in  both  of  which  the  philosopher  is 
regarded  as  a  stranger  and  monster  upon  the  earth.  The  whole 
myth,  like  the  other  myths  of  Plato,  describes  in  a  figure  things 
which  are  beyond  the  range  of  human  faculties,  or  inaccessible 


INTRODUCTION 


375 


to  the  knowledge  of  the  age.  That  philosophy  should  be  rep¬ 
resented  as  the  inspiration  of  love  is  a  conception  that  has  al¬ 
ready  become  familiar  to  us  in  the  Symposium,  and  is  the  ex¬ 
pression  partly  of  Plato’s  enthusiasm  for  the  idea,  and  is  also 
an  indication  of  the  real  power  exercised  by  the  passion  of 
friendship  over  the  mind  of  the  Greek.  The  master  in  the  art 
of  love  knew  that  there  was  a  mystery  in  these  feelings  and 
their  associations,  and  especially  in  the  contrast  of  the  sensible 
and  permanent  which  is  afforded  by  them;  and  he  sought  to 
explain  this,  as  he  explained  universal  ideas,  by  a  reference  to 
a  former  state  of  existence.  The  capriciousness  of  love  is  also 
derived  by  him  from  an  attachment  to  some  god  in  a  former 
world.  The  singular  remark  that  the  beloved  is  more  affected 
than  the  lover  at  the  final  consummation  of  their  love,  seems  like¬ 
wise  to  have  a  psychological  truth. 

We  may  now  pass  on  to  the  second  part  of  the  Dialogue,  which 
is  a  criticism  on  the  first.  Rhetoric  is  assailed  on  various 
grounds:  first,  as  expecting  to  deceive,  without  a  knowledge 
of  the  truth;  and  secondly,  as  ignoring  the  distinction  between 
certain  and  probable  matter.  The  three  speeches  are  then  passed 
in  review:  the  first  of  them  has  no  definition  of  the  nature  of 
love,  and  no  order  in  the  topics  (being  in  these  respects  far 
inferior  to  the  second)  ;  while  the  third  of  them  is  found  (though 
a  fancy  of  the  hour)  to  be  framed  upon  real  dialectical  prin¬ 
ciples.  But  dialectic  is  not  rhetoric;  nothing  on  that  subject 
is  to  be  found  in  the  endless  treatises  of  rhetoric,  however  pro¬ 
lific  in  hard  names.  When  Plato  has  sufficiently  put  them  to  the 
test  of  ridicule  he  touches,  as  with  the  point  of  a  needle,  the  real 
error  of  this  as  well  as  of  much  modern  literature  and  writing 
upon  the  arts,  which  is  the  confusion  of  preliminary  knowledge 
with  creative  power.  No  attainments  will  provide  the  speaker 
with  genius;  and  the  sort  of  attainments  which  can  alone  be  of 
any  value  are  the  higher  philosophy  and  the  power  of  psycho¬ 
logical  analysis,  which  is  given  by  dialectic,  not  by  the  rules  of 
the  rhetoricians. 

Dialectic  may  be  variously  defined,  either  as  the  power  of 
dividing  a  whole  into  parts,  and  of  uniting  the  parts  in  a  whole, 
or  as  the  process  of  the  mind  talking  with  herself.  The  latter 
view  seems  to  have  led  Plato  to  the  paradox  that  speech  is 
superior  to  writing,  in  which  he  may  seem  also  to  be  doing  an 
injustice  to  himself.  For  the  truth  is,  that  speech  and  writing 
can  not  be  fairly  compared  in  the  manner  which  Plato  suggests. 
The  contrast  of  the  living  and  dead  word,  as  well  as  the  exam- 


376 


PHAEDRUS 


pie  of  Socrates,  which  he  has  represented  in  the  form  of  the 
dialogue,  seem  to  have  misled  him.  For  speech  and  writing  have 
really  different  functions;  the  one  is  more  transitory,  more  dif¬ 
fuse,  more  elastic  and  capable  of  adaptation  to  moods  and  times ; 
the  other  is  more  permanent,  more  concentrated,  and  is  uttered 
not  to  this  or  that  person  or  audience,  but  to  all  the  world.  In 
the  Politicus  the  paradox  is  carried  further;  the  mind  or  will 
of  the  king  is  preferred  to  the  written  law. 

The  chief  criteria  for  determining  the  date  of  the  Dialogue 
are  (1)  the  ages  of  Lysias  and  Isocrates;  (2)  the  character  of 
the  work. 

Lysias  was  born  in  the  year  458 ;  Isocrates  in  the  year  436, 
about  seven  years  before  the  birth  of  Plato.  The  first  of  the 
two  great  rhetoricians  is  described  as  in  the  zenith  of  his  fame; 
the  second  as  still  young  and  full  of  promise.  Now  it  is  argued 
that  this  must  have  been  written  in  the  youth  of  Isocrates,  when 
the  promise  was  still  unfulfilled.  And  thus  we  should  have  to 
assign  the  Dialogue  to  a  year  not  later  than  406,  when  Isocrates 
was  thirty  and  Plato  twenty-three  years  of  age,  and  while  Soc¬ 
rates  himself  was  still  alive. 

Those  who  argue  in  this  way  seem  not  to  reflect  how  easily 
Plato  can  “  invent  Egyptians  or  anything  else,”  and  how  care¬ 
less  he  is  of  historical  truth  or  probability.  Who  would  suspect 
that  the  wise  Critias,  the  virtuous  Charmides,  had  ended  their 
lives  among  the  thirty  tyrants?  Who  would  imagine  that  Lys¬ 
ias,  who  is  here  assailed  by  Socrates,  is  the  son  of  his  old  friend 
Cephalus?  Or  that  Isocrates  himself  is  the  enemy  of  Plato  and 
his  school?  No  arguments  can  be  drawn  from  the  appropriate¬ 
ness  or  inappropriateness  of  the  characters  of  Plato.  (Else, 
perhaps,  it  might  be  further  argued,  that  judging  from  their 
extant  remains,  insipid  rhetoric  is  far  more  characteristic  of 
Isocrates  than  of  Lysias.)  But  Plato  makes  use  of  names  which 
have  often  hardly  any  connection  with  the  historical  characters 
to  whom  they  belong.  In  this  instance  the  comparative  favor 
shown  to  Isocrates  may  possibly  be  accounted  for  by  the  cir¬ 
cumstance  of  his  belonging  to  the  aristocratical,  as  Lysias  to 
the  democratical  party. 

Few  persons  will  be  inclined  to  suppose,  in  the  superficial 
manner  of  some  ancient  critics,  that  a  dialogue  which  treats  of 
love  must  necessarily  have  been  written  in  youth.  As  little 
weight  can  be  attached  to  the  argument  that  he  had  probably 
visited  Egypt  before  he  wrote  the  story  of  Theuth  and  Thamuz. 
For  there  is  no  real  proof  that  he  ever  was  in  Egypt;  and  even 


INTRODUCTION 


377 


if  he  was,  he  might  have  known  or  invented  Egyptian  traditions 
before  he  went  there.  The  late  date  of  the  Phaedrus  is  really 
to  be  proved  by  other  arguments  than  these:  the  maturity  of 
the  thought,  the  perfection  of  the  style,  the  insight,  the  relation 
to  the  other  Platonic  Dialogues,  seem  to  contradict  the  notion 
that  it  could  have  been  the  work  of  a  youth  of  twenty  or  twenty- 
three  years  of  age.  The  cosmological  notion  of  the  mind  as  the 
primum  mobile ,  and  the  admission  of  impulse  into  the  immortal 
nature,  afford  grounds  for  assigning  a  much  later  date.  Add 
to  this  that  the  picture  of  Socrates,  though  in  some  lesser  par¬ 
ticulars,  e.  g.  his  going  without  sandals,  his  habit  of  remaining 
within  the  walls,  his  emphatic  declaration  that  his  study  is  human 
nature,  an  exact  resemblance,  is  in  the  main  the  Platonic  and 
not  the  real  Socrates.  Can  we  suppose  “  the  young  man  to  have 
told  such  lies  ”  about  his  master  while  he  was  still  alive?  More¬ 
over,  when  two  Dialogues  are  so  closely  connected  as  the  Phae¬ 
drus  and  Symposium,  there  is  great  improbability  in  supposing 
that  one  of  them  was  written  at  least  twenty  years  after  the 
other.  The  conclusion  seems  to  be,  that  the  Dialogue  was  writ¬ 
ten  at  some  comparatively  late  but  unknown  period  of  Plato’s 
life,  after  he  had  deserted  the  purely  Socratic  point  of  view,  but 
before  he  had  entered  on  the  more  abstract  speculations  of  the 
Sophist  or  the  Philebus.  Comparing  the  divisions  of  the  soul, 
the  doctrine  of  transmigration,  the  isolation  of  the  philosophic 
life,  and  the  general  character  of  the  style,  we  shall  not  be  far 
wrong  in  placing  the  Phaedrus  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Re¬ 
public;  remarking  only  that  allowance  must  be  made  for  the 
poetical  element  in  the  Phaedrus,  which,  while  falling  short  of 
the  Republic  in  definite  philosophic  results,  seems  to  have 
glimpses  of  a  truth  beyond. 

Two  short  passages,  which  are  unconnected  with  the  main 
subject  of  the  Dialogue,  may  seem  to  merit  a  more  particular 
notice:  (1)  the  locus  classicus  about  mythology;  (2)  the  tale 
of  the  grasshoppers. 

The  first  passage  is  remarkable  as  showing  that  Plato  was 
entirely  free  from  what  may  be  termed  the  Euhemerism  of  his 
age.  (For  there  were  Euhemerists  in  Greece  before  Euheme- 
rus.)  Other  philosophers,  like  Anaxagoras,  had  found  in  Homer 
and  mythology  hidden  meanings.  Plato,  with  a  truer  instinct, 
rejects  these  attractive  interpretations;  he  regards  the  invention 
of  them  as  an  “  unfortunate  ”  way  of  employing  a  man  s  mind 
and  time.  They  are  endless,  and  they  draw  a  man  off  from  the 
knowledge  of  himself.  There  is  a  latent  criticism,  and  also  a 


378 


PHAEDTtUS 


poetical  sense  in  Plato,  which  at  once  enable  him  to  discard 
them,  and  yet  in  another  way  to  make  the  fullest  use  of  poetry 
and  mythology  as  a  vehicle  of  thought  and  feeling.  The  “  so¬ 
phistical  ”  interest  of  Phaedrus,  the  little  touch  about  the  two 
versions  of  the  story,  the  ironical  manner  in  which  these  expla¬ 
nations  are  set  aside,  “  the  common  opinion  about  them  is  enough 
for  me,”  may  be  noted  in  passing;  also  the  general  agreement 
between  the  tone  of  this  speech  and  the  remark  of  Socrates  which 
follows  afterwards,  “  I  am  a  diviner,  but  a  poor  one.” 

The  tale  of  the  grasshoppers  is  naturally  suggested  by  the 
surrounding  scene.  Yet  we  must  not  forget  also,  that  they  are 
the  representatives  of  the  Athenians  as  children  of  the  soil. 
Under  the  image  of  the  lively  chirruping  grasshoppers  who  in¬ 
form  the  Muses  in  heaven  who  honors  them  on  earth,  Plato 
intends  to  represent  an  Athenian  audience.  The  story  is  intro¬ 
duced,  apparently,  to  mark  a  change  of  subject,  and  also,  like 
several  other  allusions  which  occur  in  the  course  of  the  Dialogue, 
in  order  to  preserve  the  scene  in  the  recollection  of  the  reader. 


PHAEDRUS 


PERSONS  OF  THE  DIALOGUE 
Socrates.  Phaedrus. 

Scene  : —  Under  a  plane-tree,  by  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus. 

Socrates.  My  dear  Phaedrus,  whence  come  you, 

and  whither  are  you  going? 

Phaedrus.  I  am  come  from  Lysias  the  son  of  Ceph- 
alus,  and  I  am  going  to  take  a  walk  outside  the  wall, 
for  I  have  been  with  him  ever  since  the  early  dawn, 
which  is  a  long  while,  and  our  common  friend  Acu- 
menus  advises  me  to  walk  in  the  country;  he  says  that 
this  is  far  more  refreshing  than  walking  in  the  courts. 

Soc.  There  he  is  right.  Lysias  then,  I  suppose,  was 
in  the  city? 

Phaedr.  Yes,  he  was  with  Epicrates,  at  the  house 
of  Morychus ;  that  house  which  is  near  the  temple  of 
Olympian  Zeus. 

Soc.  And  how  did  he  entertain  you?  Can  I  be 
wrong  in  supposing  that  Lysias  gave  you  a  feast  of 
discourse? 

Phaedr.  You  shall  hear,  if  you  have  leisure  to  stay 
and  listen. 

Soc.  And  would  I  not  regard  the  conversation  of 
you  and  Lysias  as  “  a  thing  of  higher  import,”  as  I 
may  say  in  the  words  of  Pindar,  “  than  any  busi- 
ness? 

Phaedr.  Will  you  go  on? 

Soc.  And  will  you  go  on  with  the  narration? 

Phaedr.  My  tale,  Socrates,  is  one  of  your  sort,  for 
the  theme  which  occupied  us  was  love  —  after  a  fash- 

379 


380 


PHAEDRUS 


ion:  Lysias  imagined  a  fair  youth  who  was  being 
tempted,  but  not  by  a  lover;  and  this  was  the  point: 
he  ingeniously  proved  that  the  non-lover  should  be 
accepted  rather  than  the  lover. 

Soc.  O  that  is  noble  of  him.  And  I  wish  that  he 
would  say  a  poor  man  rather  than  a  rich,  and  an  old 
man  rather  than  a  young  one;  he  should  meet  the 
case  of  me,  and  all  of  us,  and  then  his  words  would 
indeed  be  charming,  and  of  public  utility;  and  I  am 
so  eager  to  hear  them  that  if  you  walk  all  the  way 
to  Megara,  and  when  you  have  reached  the  wall  come 
back,  as  Herodicus  recommends,  without  going  in,  I 
will  not  leave  you. 

Phaedr.  What  do  you  mean,  Socrates?  How  can 
you  imagine  that  I,  who  am  quite  unpractised,  can 
remember  or  do  justice  to  an  elaborate  work,  which 
the  greatest  rhetorician  of  the  day  spent  a  long  time 
in  composing.  Indeed,  I  can  not;  I  would  give  a 
great  deal  if  I  could. 

Soc.  I  believe  that  I  know  Phaedrus  about  as  well 
as  I  know  myself,  and  I  am  very  sure  that  he  heard 
the  words  of  Lysias,  not  once  only,  but  again  and 
again  he  made  him  say  them,  and  Lysias  was  very 
willing  to  gratify  him;  at  last,  when  nothing  else 
would  satisfy  him,  he  got  hold  of  the  book,  and  saw 
what  he  wanted  —  this  was  hi.s  morning’s  occupation 
—  and  then  when  he  was  tired  with  sitting,  he  went 
out  to  take  a  walk,  not  until,  as  I  believe,  he  had  sim¬ 
ply  learned  by  heart  the  entire  discourse,  which  may 
not  have  been  very  long ;  and  as  he  was  going  to  take 
a  walk  outside  the  wall  in  order  that  he  might  prac¬ 
tise,  he  saw  a  certain  lover  of  discourse  who  had  the 
same  complaint  as  himself;  —  he  saw  and  rejoiced; 
now  thought  he,  “  I  shall  have  a  partner  in  my  revels.” 
And  he  invited  him  to  come  with  him.  But  when  the 
lover  of  discourse  asked  to  hear  the  tale,  he  gave  him- 


PHAEDRUS 


381 


self  airs  and  said,  “  No  I  can’t,”  as  if  he  didn’t  like; 
although,  if  the  hearer  had  refused,  the  end  would 
have  been  that  he  would  have  made  him  listen  whether 
he  would  or  no.  Therefore,  Phaedrus,  as  he  will  soon 
speak  in  any  case,  begs  him  to  speak  at  once. 

Phaedr.  As  you  don’t  seem  very  likely  to  let  me 
off  until  I  speak  in  some  way,  the  best  thing  that  I 
can  do  is  to  speak  as  I  best  may. 

Soc.  That  is  a  very  true  observation  of  yours. 

Phaedr.  I  will  do  my  best,  for  believe  me,  Socrates, 
I  did  not  learn  the  very  words;  O  no,  but  I  have  a 
general  notion  of  what  he  said,  and  will  repeat  con¬ 
cisely,  and  in  order,  the  several  arguments  by  which 
the  case  of  the  non-lover  was  proved  to  be  superior 
to  that  of  the  lover ;  let  me  begin  at  the  beginning. 

Soc.  Yes,  my  friend;  but  you  must  first  of  all  show 
what  you  have  got  in  your  left  hand  under  your  cloak, 
for  that  roll,  as  I  suspect,  is  the  actual  discourse. 
Now,  much  as  I  love  you,  I  would  not  have  you  sup¬ 
pose  that  I  am  going  to  have  your  memory  exercised 
upon  me,  if  you  have  Lysias  himself  here. 

Phaedr.  Enough;  I  see  that  I  have  no  hope  of 
practising  upon  you.  But  if  I  am  to  read,  where 
would  you  please  to  sit? 

Soc.  Turn  this  way;  let  us  go  to  the  Ilissus,  and 
sit  down  at  some  quiet  spot. 

Phaedr.  I  am  fortunate  in  not  having  my  sandals, 
and  as  you  never  have  any,  I  think  that  we  may  go 
along  the  brook  and  cool  our  feet  in  the  water;  this 
is  the  easiest  way,  and  at  mid-day  and  in  the  summer 
is  far  from  being  unpleasant. 

Soc.  Lead  on,  and  look  out  for  a  place  in  which 
we  can  sit  down. 

Phaedr.  Do  you  see  that  tallest  plane-tree  in  the 
distance? 

Soc.  Yes. 


382 


PHAEDRUS 


Phaedr.  There  are  shade  and  gentle  breezes,  and 
grass  on  which  we  may  either  sit  or  he  down. 

Soc.  Move  on. 

Phaedr .  I  should  like  to  know,  Socrates,  whether 
the  place  is  not  somewhere  here  at  which  Boreas  is 
said  to  have  carried  off  Orithyia  from  the  banks  of  the 
Ilissus. 

Soc.  That  is  the  tradition. 

Phaedr.  And  is  this  the  exact  spot?  The  little 
stream  is  delightfully  clear  and  bright;  I  can  fancy 
that  there  might  be  maidens  playing  near. 

Soc.  I  believe  that  the  spot  is  not  exactly  here,  but 
about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  lower  down,  where  you  cross 
to  the  temple  of  Agra,  and  I  think  that  there  is  some 
sort  of  altar  of  Boreas  at  the  place. 

Phaedr.  I  don’t  recollect;  but  I  wish  that  you 
would  tell  me  whether  you  believe  this  tale. 

Soc.  The  wise  are  doubtful,  and  if,  like  them,  I 
also  doubted,  there  would  be  nothing  very  strange 
in  that.  I  might  have  a  rational  explanation  that 
Orithyia  was  playing  with  Pharmacia,  when  a  north¬ 
ern  gust  carried  her  over  the  neighboring  rocks ;  and 
this  being  the  manner  of  her  death,  she  was  said  to 
have  been  carried  away  by  Boreas.  There  is  a  dis¬ 
crepancy,  however,  about  the  locality,  as  according 
to  another  version  of  the  story  she  was  taken  from 
the  Areopagus,  and  not  from  this  place.  Now  I  quite 
acknowledge  that  these  explanations  are  very  nice, 
but  he  is  not  to  be  envied  who  has  to  give  them ;  much 
labor  and  ingenuity  will  be  required  of  him;  and 
when  he  has  once  begun,  he  must  go  on  and  rehabil¬ 
itate  centaurs  and  chimeras  dire.  Gorgons  and 
winged  steeds  flow  in  apace,  and  numberless  other 
inconceivable  and  impossible  monstrosities  and  mar¬ 
vels  of  nature.  And  if  he  is  sceptical  about  them,  and 
would  fain  reduce  them  all  to  the  rules  of  probability. 


PHAEDRUS 


383 


his  sort  of  crude  philosophy  will  take  up  all  his  time. 
Now  I  have  certainly  not  time  for  this;  shall  I  tell 
;mu  why?  I  must  first  know  myself,  as  the  Delphian 
inscription  says;  and  I  should  be  absurd  indeed,  if 
while  I  am  still  in  ignorance  of  myself  I  were  to  be 
curious  about  that  which  is  not  my  business.  And 
therefore  I  say  farewell  to  all  this ;  the  common  opin¬ 
ion  is  enough  for  me.  For,  as  I  was  saying,  I  want 
to  know  not  about  this,  but  about  myself.  Am  I 
indeed  a  wonder  more  complicated  and  swollen  with 
passion  than  the  serpent  Typho,  or  a  creature  of  a 
(rentier  and  simpler  sort,  to  whom  Nature  has  given 
a  diviner  and  lowlier  destiny  ?  But  here  let  me  ask 
you,  friend:  Is  not  this  the  plane-tree  to  which  you 

were  conducting  us  ? 

Phaedr.  Yes,  this  is  the  tree. 

Soc.  Yes,  indeed,  and  a  fair  and  shady  resting- 
place,  full  of  summer  sounds  and  scents.  There  is  the 
lofty  and  spreading  plane-tree,  and  the  agnus  castus 
high  and  clustering,  in  the  fullest  blossom  and  the 
greatest  fragrance;  and  the  stream  which  flows  be¬ 
neath  the  plane-tree  is  deliciously  cold  to  the  feet. 
Judging  from  the  ornaments  and  images,  this  must 
be  a  spot  sacred  to  Achelous  and  the  Nymphs;  more¬ 
over,  there  is  a  sweet  breeze,  and  the  grasshoppers 
chirrup;  and  the  greatest  charm  of  all  is  the  grass 
like  a  pillow  gently  sloping  to  the  head.  My  deal 
Phaedrus,  you  have  been  an  admirable  guide. 

Phaedr.  I  always  wonder  at  you,  Socrates;  for 
when  you  are  in  the  country,  you  really  are  like  a 
stranger  who  is  being  led  about  by  a  guide.  Do  you 
ever  cross  the  border?  I  rather  think  that  you  never 

venture  even  outside  the  gates.  . 

Soc.  Very  true,  my  good  friend;  and  I  hope  that 
you  will  excuse  me  when  you  hear  the  leason,  which 
is,  that  I  am  a  lover  of  knowledge,  and  the  men  who 


384 


PHAEDRUS 


dwell  in  the  city  are  my  teachers,  and  not  the  trees 
or  the  country.  Though  I  do,  indeed,  believe  thai 
you  have  found  a  spell  with  which  to  draw  me  out  oJ 
the  city  into  the  country,  as  hungry  cows  are  led  b) 
shaking  before  them  a  bait  of  leaves  or  fruit.  Foi 
only  hold  up  the  bait  of  discourse,  and  you  may  leac 
me  all  round  Attica,  and  over  the  wide  world.  Anc 
now  having  arrived,  I  intend  to  lie  down,  and  do  yoi 
choose  any  posture  in  which  you  can  read  best.  Begin 
Phaedr.  Listen.  “  You  know  my  views  of  oui 
common  interest,  and  I  do  not  think  that  I  ought  tc 
fail  in  the  object  of  my  suit,  because  I  am  not  you] 
lover:  for  the  kindnesses  of  lovers  are  afterwards 
regretted  by  them  when  their  passion  ceases,  but  non¬ 
lovers  have  no  time  of  repentance,  because  they  arc 
free  and  not  subject  to  necessity,  and  they  confer  theii 
benefits  as  far  as  they  are  able,  in  the  way  which  is 
most  conducive  to  their  own  interest.  Then  again 
lovers  remember  how  they  have  neglected  their  inter¬ 
ests,  for  the  sake  of  their  loves;  they  consider  the 
benefits  which  they  have  conferred  on  them;  and  wher 
to  these  they  add  the  troubles  which  they  have  en¬ 
dured,  they  think  that  they  have  long  ago  paid  al 
that  is  due  to  them.  But  the  non-lover  has  no  suet 
tormenting  recollections;  he  has  never  neglected  his 
affairs  or  quarrelled  with  his  relations;  he  has  nc 
troubles  to  reckon  up,  or  excuses  to  allege;  for  al 
has  gone  smoothly  with  him.  What  remains,  then 
but  that  he  should  freely  do  what  will  gratify  the 
beloved?  But  you  will  say  that  the  lover  is  more  tc 
be  esteemed,  because  his  love  is  thought  to  be  greater 
for  he  is  willing  to  say  and  do  what  is  hateful  to  othei 
men,  in  order  to  please  his  beloved :  well,  that,  if  true 
is  only  a  proof  that  he  will  prefer  any  future  love  tc 
his  present,  and  will  injure  his  old  love  at  the  pleasure 
of  the  new.  And  how  can  a  man  reasonably  sacrifice 


PHAEDRUS 


385 


himself  to  one  who  is  possessed  with  a  malady  which 
no  experienced  person  would  attempt  to  cure,  for  the 
patient  himself  admits  that  he  is  not  in  his  right  mind, 
and  acknowledges  that  he  is  wrong  in  his  mind,  but 
is  unable,  as  he  says,  to  control  himself.  How,  if  he 
came  to  his  right  mind,  could  he  imagine  that  the 
desires  were  good  which  he  conceived  when  in  his 
wrong  mind?  Then  again,  there  are  many  more  non¬ 
lovers  than  lovers;  and,  therefore,  you  will  have  a 
larger  choice,  and  are  far  more  likely  to  find  among 
them  a  compatible  friend.  And  if  you  fear  common 
opinion,  and  would  avoid  publicity  and  reproach,  the 
lover,  who  is  always  thinking  that  other  men  are  as 
emulous  of  him  as  he  is  of  them,  will  be  sure  to  boast 
of  his  successes,  and  make  a  show  of  them  openly  in  the 
pride  of  his  heart ;  —  he  wants  others  to  know  that 
his  labor  has  not  been  lost;  but  the  non-lover  is  more 
his  own  master,  and  is  desirous  of  solid  good,  and  not 
of  the  vainglory  of  men.  Again,  the  lover  may  be 
generally  seen  and  known  following  the  beloved  (this 
is  his  regular  occupation) ,  and  when  they  are  observed 
to  exchange  two  words  they  are  supposed  to  meet 
about  some  affair  of  love,  either  past  or  future;  but 
when  non-lovers  meet,  no  one  asks  the  reason  why, 
because  people  know  that  talking  is  natural,  wdiether 
friendship  or  mere  pleasure  is  the  motive.  And,  again, 
if  you  fear  the  fickleness  of  friendship,  consider  that 
in  any  other  case  a  quarrel  might  be  a  mutual  calamity ; 
but  now%  when  you  have  given  up  wdiat  is  most 
precious  to  you,  you  will  be  the  great  loser,  and 
therefore,  you  will  have  reason  in  being  more  afraid 
of  the  lover,  for  his  vexations  are  many,  and  he  is 
always  fancying  that  everything  is  against  him.  And 
for  this  reason  he  debars  his  beloved  from  society;  he 
will  not  have  vou  intimate  with  the  wealthy,  lest  they 
should  exceed  him  in  wealth,  or  with  men  of  education, 


386 


PHAEDRUS 


lest  they  should  be  his  superiors  in  knowledge ;  and  he 
is  equally  afraid  of  the  power  of  any  other  good.  He 
would  persuade  you  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  them, 
in  order  that  he  may  have  you  all  to  himself,  and  if, 
out  of  regard  to  your  own  interest,  you  have  more 
sense  than  to  comply  with  this  desire,  a  quarrel  will 
ensue.  But  those  who  are  non-lovers,  and  whose  suc¬ 
cess  in  love  is  the  reward  of  their  superiority,  will  not 
be  jealous  of  the  companions  of  their  beloved,  but  will 
rather  hate  those  who  refuse  to  be  his  companions, 
thinking  that  their  refusal  is  a  mark  of  contempt,  and 
that  he  would  be  benefited  by  having  companions; 
more  love  than  hatred  may  be  expected  to  come  of 
that.  Many  lovers  also  have  loved  the  person  of  a 
youth  before  they  knew  his  character,  or  were  ac¬ 
quainted  with  his  domestic  relations;  so  that  when 
their  passion  has  passed  away,  there  is  no  knowing 
whether  they  will  continue  to  be  his  friends;  whereas, 
in  the  case  of  non-lovers  who  were  always  friends,  the 
friendship  is  not  lessened  by  sensual  delights;  but  the 
recollection  of  these  remains  with  them,  and  is  an 
earnest  of  good  things  to  come.  Further,  I  say  that 
you  are  likely  to  be  improved  by  me,  whereas  the  lover 
will  spoil  you.  For  they  praise  your  words  and 
actions  in  a  bad  way;  partly,  they  are  afraid  of  offend¬ 
ing  you,  and  partly,  their  judgment  is  weakened  by 
their  passion:  for  lovers  are  singular  beings  when  dis¬ 
appointed  in  love  —  they  deem  that  painful  which  is 
not  painful  to  others,  and  when  successful  they  can 
not  help  praising  that  which  ought  not  to  give  them 
pleasure;  so  that  the  beloved  is  a  far  more  appropriate 
object  of  pity  than  of  envy.  But  if  you  listen  to  me, 
in  the  first  place,  I,  in  my  intercourse  with  you,  shall 
not  regard  present  enjoyment,  but  future  advantage, 
being  not  conquered  by  love,  but  conquering  myself ; 
nor  for  small  causes  taking  violent  offences,  but  even 


PHAEDRUS 


387 


when  the  cause  is  great,  slowly  laying  up  little  wrath 
—  unintentional  offences  I  shall  forgive,  and  in¬ 
tentional  ones  I  shall  try  to  prevent ;  and  these  are  the 
marks  of  a  friendship  which  will  last.  But  if  you 
think  that  only  a  lover  can  be  a  firm  friend,  you  ought 
to  consider  that,  if  this  were  true,  we  should  set  small 
value  on  sons,  or  fathers,  or  mothers;  nor  should  we 
ever  have  loyal  friends,  for  our  love  of  them  arises  not 
from  passion,  but  from  other  associations.  F urther,  if 
we  ought  to  confer  favors  on  those  who  are  the  most 
eager  suitors,  we  ought  to  confer  them  not  on  the  most 
virtuous,  but  on  the  most  needy ;  for  they  are  the  per¬ 
sons  who  will  be  most  relieved,  and  will  therefore  be 
the  most  grateful ;  and,  in  general,  when  you  make  a 
feast,  invite  not  your  friend,  but  the  beggar  and  the 
empty  soul,  for  they  will  love  you,  and  attend  you, 
and  come  about  your  doors,  and  will  be  the 
best  pleased,  and  the  most  grateful,  and  will  invoke 
blessings  on  your  head.  But,  perhaps,  you  will  say 
I  that  you  ought  not  to  give  to  the  most  importunate, 
but  to  those  who  are  best  able  to  reward  you ;  nor  to  the 
lover  only,  but  to  those  who  are  worthy  of  love ;  nor  to 
those  who  will  enjoy  the  charm  of  your  youth,  but  to 
those  who  will  share  their  goods  with  you  in  age ;  nor 
to  those  who,  having  succeeded,  will  glory  in  their 
success  to  others,  but  to  those  who  will  be  modest  and 
hold  their  peace;  nor  to  those  who  care  about  you  for 
a  moment  only,  but  to  those  who  will  continue  your 
friends  for  life;  nor  to  those  who,  when  their  passion 
is  over,  will  pick  a  quarrel  with  you,  but  rather  to  those 
who,  when  the  bloom  of  youth  is  over,  will  show  their 
own  virtue.  Remember  what  I  have  said;  and  con¬ 
sider  this  also,  that  friends  admonish  the  lover  under 
the  idea  that  his  way  of  life  is  bad,  but  no  one  of  his 
kindred  ever  yet  censured  the  non-lover,  or  thought 
that  he  was  ill-advised  about  his  own  interests. 


388 


PHAEDRUS 


“  Perhaps  you  will  ask  me  whether  I  propose  that 
you  should  indulge  every  non-lover.  To  which  I  reply 
that  not  even  the  lover  would  advise  you  to  indulge 
all  lovers,  for  the  favor  is  less  in  the  just  estimation 
of  the  receiver  and  more  difficult  to  hide  from  the 
world.  Now  love  ought  to  be  for  the  advantage  of 
both  parties  and  for  the  injury  of  neither. 

“  I  believe  that  I  have  said  enough;  but  if  there  is 
anything  more  which  you  desire  or  which  needs  to  be 
supplied,  ask  and  I  will  answer.’’ 

Now,  Socrates,  what  do  you  think?  Is  not  the  dis¬ 
course  excellent,  especially  the  language? 

Soc.  Yes  indeed,  admirable;  the  effect  on  me  was 
ravishing.  And  this  I  owe  to  you,  Phaedrus,  for  I 
observed  you  while  reading  to  be  in  an  ecstasy,  and 
thinking  that  you  are  more  experienced  in  these  mat¬ 
ters  than  I  am,  I  followed  your  example,  and,  like 
you,  became  inspired  with  a  divine  frenzy. 

Phaedr.  Indeed,  you  are  pleased  to  be  merry. 

Soc.  Do  you  mean  that  I  am  not  in  earnest? 

Phaedr .  Now,  don’t  talk  in  that  way,  Socrates,  but 
let  me  have  your  real  opinion;  I  adjure  you,  by  the 
god  of  friendship,  to  tell  me  whether  you  think  that 
any  Hellene  could  have  said  more  or  spoken  better  on 
the  same  subject. 

Soc.  Well,  but  are  you  and  I  expected  to  praise  the 
sentiments  of  the  author,  or  only  the  clearness,  and 
roundness,  and  accuracy,  and  tournure  of  the  lan¬ 
guage  ?  As  to  the  first  I  willingly  submit  to  your  bet¬ 
ter  judgment,  for  I  am  unworthy  to  form  an  opinion, 
having  only  attended  to  the  rhetorical  manner ;  and  I 
was  doubting  whether  Lysias  himself  would  be  able  to 
defend  that;  for  I  thought,  though  I  speak  under  cor¬ 
rection,  that  he  repeated  himself  two  or  three  times, 
either  from  want  of  words  or  from  want  of  pains;  and 
also,  he  appeared  to  me  wantonly  ambitious  of  show- 


PHAEDRUS 


389 


ng  how  well  he  could  say  the  same  thing  in  two  or 
hree  ways. 

Phaedr.  Nonsense,  Socrates;  that  was  his  exhaust- 
ve  treatment  of  the  subject;  for  he  omitted  nothing; 
-  this  is  the  special  merit  of  the  speech,  and  I  do  not 
hink  that  any  one  could  have  made  a  fuller  or  better. 

Soc.  I  can  not  go  so  far  as  that  with  you.  Ancient 
ages,  men  and  women,  who  have  spoken  and  written 
,f  these  things,  would  rise  up  in  judgment  against  me, 
f  I  lightly  assented  to  you. 

Phaedr.  Who  are  they,  and  where  did  you  hear 
mything  better  than  this? 

Soc.  I  am  sure  that  I  must  have  heard;  I  don  t  re- 
nember  at  this  moment  from  whom;  perhaps  from 
Sappho  the  fair,  Anacreon  the  wise;  or,  possibly,  from 
i  prose  writer.  What  makes  me  say  this?  Why,  be¬ 
cause  I  perceive  that  my  bosom  is  full,  and  that  I 
;ould  make  another  speech  as  good  as  that  of  Lysias, 
md  different.  Now  I  am  certain  that  this  is  not  an 
nvention  of  my  own,  for  I  am  conscious  that  I  know 
lothing,  and  therefore  I  can  only  infer  that  I  have 
oeen  filled  through  the  ears,  like  a  pitcher  from  the 
waters  of  another,  though  I  have  actually  forgotten 
n  my  stupidity  who  was  my  informant. 

Phaedr.  That  is  grand.  But  never  mind  where  you 
beard  the  discourse  or  of  whom;  let  that,  if  you  will, 
be  a  mystery  not  to  he  divulged  even  at  my  earnest 
iesire.  But  do  as  you  say;  promise  to  make  an¬ 
other  and  better  oration  of  equal  length  on  the  same 
subject,  with  other  arguments;  and  I,  like  the  nine 
Archons,  will  promise  to  set  up  a  golden  image  at 
Delphi,  not  only  of  myself,  but  of  you,  and  as  large 
as  life. 

Soc.  You  are  a  dear  golden  simpleton  if  you  sup¬ 
pose  me  to  mean  that  Lysias  has  altogether  missed  the 
mark,  and  that  I  can  make  a  speech  from  which  all 


390 


PHAEDRUS 


his  arguments  are  to  be  excluded.  The  worst  of 
authors  will  say  something  that  is  to  the  point.  Who, 
for  example,  could  speak  on  this  thesis  of  yours  with¬ 
out  praising  the  discretion  of  the  non-lover  and 
blaming  the  folly  of  the  lover?  These  are  the  com¬ 
mon-places  which  must  come  in  (for  what  else  is  there 
to  be  said?)  and  must  be  allowed  and  excused;  the 
only  merit  is  in  the  arrangement  of  them,  for  there  can 
be  none  in  the  invention ;  but  when  you  leave  the  com- 1 
mon-places,  then  there  may  be  some  originality. 

Phaedr.  I  admit  that  there  is  reason  in  that,  and  I 
will  be  reasonable  too,  and  will  allow  you  to  start  with 
the  premiss  that  the  lover  is  more  disordered  in  his  wits 
than  the  non-lover;  and  if  you  go  on  after  that  and 
make  a  longer  and  better  speech  than  Lysias,  and  use 
other  arguments,  then  I  say  again  that  a  statue  you 
shall  have  of  beaten  gold,  and  take  your  place  by  the 
colossal  offering  of  the  Cypselids  at  Olympia. 

Soc.  Is  not  the  lover  serious,  because  only  in  fun  I 
lay  a  finger  upon  his  love?  And  so,  Phaedrus,  you 
really  imagine  that  I  am  going  to  improve  upon  his 
ingenuity? 

Phaedr .  There  I  have  you  as  you  had  me,  and  you 
must  speak  “  as  you  best  can,”  and  no  mistake.  And 
don’t  let  us  have  the  vulgar  exchange  of  “  tu  quoque  ” 
as  in  a  comedy,  or  compel  me  to  say  to  you  as  you  said 
to  me,  “  I  know  Socrates  as  well  as  I  know  myself, 
and  he  was  wanting  to  speak,  but  he  gave  himself 
airs.”  Rather  I  would  have  you  consider  that  from 
this  place  we  stir  not  until  you  have  unbosomed  your¬ 
self  of  the  speech;  for  here  are  we  all  alone,  and  I  am 
stronger,  remember,  and  younger  than  you;  therefore 
perpend,  and  do  not  compel  me  to  use  violence. 

Soc.  But,  my  sweet  Phaedrus,  how  can  I  ever  com¬ 
pete  with  Lysias  in  an  extempore  speech?  He  is  a 
master  in  his  art  and  I  am  an  untaught  man. 


PHAEDRUS 


391 


Phaedr.  You  see  how  matters  stand ;  and  therefore 
let  there  be  no  more  pretences ;  for,  indeed,  I  know  the 
word  that  is  irresistible. 

Soc.  Then  don’t  say  it. 

Phaedr.  Yes,  but  I  will;  and  my  word  shall  be  an 
oath.  “  I  say,  or  rather  swear  ”  —  but  what  god  will 
be  the  witness  of  my  oath?  —  “  I  swear  by  this  plane- 
tree,  that  unless  you  repeat  the  discourse  here,  in  the 
face  of  the  plane-tree,  I  will  never  tell  you  another; 
never  let  you  have  word  of  another ! 

Soc.  Villain!  I  am  conquered;  the  poor  lover  of 

discourse  has  no  more  to  say. 

Phaedr.  Then  why  are  you  still  at  your  tricks  ? 

Soc.  I  am  not  going  to  play  tricks  now  that  you 
have  taken  the  oath,  for  I  can  not  allow  myself  to  be 
starved. 

Phaedr.  Proceed. 

Soc.  Shall  I  tell  you  what  I  will  do? 

Phaedr.  What? 

Soc.  I  will  veil  my  face  and  gallop  through  the  dis¬ 
course  as  fast  as  I  can,  for  if  I  see  you,  I  shall  feel 

ashamed  and  not  know  what  to  say. 

Phaedr.  Only  go  on  and  you  may  do  as  you  please. 

Soc .  Come,  O  ye  Muses,  melodious  (X*7«a0,  as 
ye  are  called,  whether  you  have .  received  this  name 
from  the  character  of  your  strains,  or  because  the 
Melians  are  a  musical  race,  help,  O  help  me  in  the  tale 
which  my  good  friend  desires  me  to  rehearse,  foi  the 
good  of  his  friend  whom  he  always  deemed  wise  and 

will  now  deem  wiser  than  ever. 

Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  fair  hoy,  or,  more 
properly  speaking,  a  youth;  he  was  very  fair  and  had 
a  great  many  lovers;  and  there  was  one  special  cun¬ 
ning  one,  who  had  persuaded  the  youth  that  he  did 
not  love  him,  but  he  really  loved  him  all  the  same;  and 
one  day  as  he  was  paying  his  addresses  to  him,  he  used 


392 


PHAEDRUS 


this  very  argument  —  that  he  ought  to  accept  the  non¬ 
lover  rather  than  the  lover ;  and  his  words  were  as  fol¬ 
low  :  — 

“  All  good  counsel  begins  in  the  same  way;  a  man 
should  know  wrhat  he  is  advising  about,  or  his  counsel 
will  come  to  nought.  But  people  imagine  that  they 
know  about  the  nature  of  things,  when  they  don’t 
know  about  them,  and,  not  agreeing  at  the  beginning, 
they  end,  as  might  be  expected,  in  contradicting  one 
another  and  themselves.  Now  you  and  I  must  not  be 
guilty  of  the  error  which  we  condemn  in  others ;  but  as 
our  question  is  whether  the  lover  or  non-lover  is  to  be 
preferred,  let  us  first  of  all  agree  in  defining  the 
nature  and  power  of  love,  and  then,  keeping  our  eyes 
upon  this  and  to  this  appealing  let  us  further  inquire 
whether  love  brings  advantage  or  disadvantage. 

“  Every  one  sees  that  love  is  a  desire,  and  we  know 
also  that  non-lovers  desire  the  beautiful  and  good. 
Now  in  what  way  is  the  lover  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  non-lover?  Let  us  note  that  in  every  one  of  us 
there  are  two  guiding  and  ruling  principles  which  lead 
us  whither  they  will;  one  is  the  natural  desire  of 
pleasure,  the  other  is  an  acquired  opinion  which  is  in 
search  of  the  best ;  and  these  two  are  sometimes  in  har¬ 
mony  and  then  again  at  war,  and  sometimes  the  one, 
sometimes  the  other  conquers.  When  opinion  con¬ 
quers,  and  by  the  help  of  reason  leads  us  to  the  best, 
the  conquering  principle  is  called  temperance;  but 
when  desire,  which  is  devoid  of  reason,  rules  in  us  and 
drags  us  to  pleasure,  that  power  of  misrule  is  called 
excess.  Now  excess  has  many  names,  and  many  mem¬ 
bers,  and  many  forms,  and  any  of  these  forms  when 
marked  gives  a  name  to  the  bearer  of  the  name,  neither 
honorable  nor  desirable.  The  desire  of  eating,  which 
gets  the  better  of  the  higher  reason  and  the  other 
desires,  is  called  gluttony,  and  he  who  is  possessed  by 


PHAEDRUS 


393 


this  is  called  a  glutton;  the  tyrannical  desire  of  drink, 
which  inclines  the  possessor  of  the  desire  to  drink,  has 
a  name  which  is  only  too  obvious ;  and  the  same  may 
be  said  of  the  whole  family  of  desires  and  their  names, 
whichever  of  them  happens  to  be  dominant.  And  now 
I  think  that  you  will  perceive  the  drift  of  my  dis¬ 
course;  but  as  every  spoken  word  is  in  a  manner 
plainer  than  the  unspoken,  I  had  better  say  further 
that  the  irrational  desire  which  overcomes  the  tendency 
of  opinion  towards  right,  and  is  led  away  to  the  enjoy¬ 
ment  of  beauty,  and  especially  of  personal  beauty,  by 
the  desires  which  are  her  kindred  —  that  desire,  I  say, 
the  conqueror  and  leader  of  the  rest,  and  waxing 
strong  from  having  this  very  power,  is  called  the 

power  of  lo^e.” 

And  now,  dear  Phaedrus,  I  shall  pause  for  an  in¬ 
stant  to  ask  whether  you  do  not  think  me,  as  I  appear 
to  myself,  inspired? 

Pliaedr.  Yes,  Socrates,  you  seem  to  have  a  very 
unusual  flow  of  words. 

Soc.  Listen  to  me,  then,  in  silence ;  for  surely  the 
place  is  holy;  so  that  you  must  not  wonder,  if,  as  I  pro¬ 
ceed,  I  appear  to  be  in  a  divine  fury,  for  already  I  am 
getting  into  dithyrambics. 

Phaedr.  That  is  quite  true. 

Soc .  And  that  I  attribute  to  you.  But  hear  what 
follows,  and  perhaps  the  fit  may  be  averted ;  all  is  in 
their  hands  above.  And  now  I  will  go  on  talking  to 
my  youth.  Listen :  — 

Thus,  my  friend,  we  have  declared  and  determined 
the  nature  of  love.  Keeping  this  in  view,  let  us  now 
inquire  what  advantage  or  disadvantage  is  likely  to 
ensue  from  the  lover  or  the  non-lover  to  him  who 
accepts  their  advances. 

He  who  is  the  victim  of  his  passions  and  the  slave  of 
pleasure  will  of  course  desire  to  make  his  beloved  as 


394 


PHAEDRUS 


agreeable  to  himself  as  possible.  Now  to  him  who  is 
not  in  his  right  senses  that  is  agreeable  which  is  not 
opposed  to  him,  but  that  which  is  equal  or  superior  is 
hateful  to  him,  and  therefore  the  lover  will  not  brook 
any  superiority  or  equality  on  the  part  of  his  beloved ; 
he  is  always  employed  in  reducing  him  to  inferiority. 
And  the  ignorant  is  the  inferior  of  the  wise,  the  cow¬ 
ard  of  the  brave,  the  slow  of  speech  of  the  speaker,  the 
dull  of  the  clever.  These  are  the  sort  of  natural  and 
inherent  defects  in  the  mind  of  the  beloved  which 
enhance  the  delight  of  the  lover,  and  there  are  acquired 
defects  which  he  must  produce  in  him,  or  he  will  be 
deprived  of  his  fleeting  joy.  And  therefore  he  can 
not  help  being  jealous,  and  will  debar  hkn  from  the 
advantages  of  society  which  would  make  a  man  of 
him,  and  especially  from  that  society  which  would 
have  given  him  wisdom.  That  is  to  say,  he  will  be 
compelled  to  banish  from  him  divine  philosophy,  in 
his  excessive  fear  lest  he  should  come  to  be  despised 
in  his  eyes;  and  there  is  no  greater  injury  which  he 
can  inflict  on  him  than  this.  Moreover,  he  will  con¬ 
trive  that  he  shall  be  wholly  ignorant,  and  in  every¬ 
thing  dependent  on  himself ;  he  is  to  be  the  delight 
of  his  lover’s  heart,  and  a  curse  to  himself.  Verily, 
a  lover  is  a  profitable  guardian  and  associate  for  him 
in  all  that  relates  to  his  mind. 

Let  us  next  see  how  his  master,  whose  law  of  life 
is  pleasure  and  not  good,  will  keep  and  train  the  body 
of  his  servant.  Will  he  not  choose  a  beloved  who  is 
delicate  rather  than  sturdy  and  strong?  One  brought 
up  in  shady  bowers  and  not  in  the  bright  sun,  not 
practised  in  manly  exercises  or  dried  by  perspiration, 
but  knowing  only  a  soft  and  luxurious  diet,  instead 
of  the  hues  of  health  having  only  the  colors  of  paint 
and  ornament,  and  the  rest  of  a  piece?  —  such  a  life 
as  any  one  can  imagine  and  which  I  need  not  detail  at 


PHAEDRUS 


395 


length.  .But  I  may  sum  up  all  that  I  have  to  say  in 
a  wo.d,  and  pass  on.  Such  a  person  in  war,  or  in  any 
of  the  great  exigencies  in  life,  will  be  the  anxiety  of 
his  'friends  and  also  of  his  lover,  and  certainly  not  the 
terror  of  his  enemies;  which  nobody  can  deny. 

And  now  let  us  tell  what  advantage  or  disadvan¬ 
tage'  the  beloved  will  receive  from  the  guardianship 
and  society  of  his  lover  in  the  matter  of  his  possessions ; 
that  is  the  next  point  to  consider.  All  men  will  see, 
and  the  lover  above  all  men,  that  his  own  first  wish 
is  to  deprive  his  beloved  of  his  dearest  and  best  and 
most  sacred  possessions,  father,  mother,  kindred, 
friends,  ail  whom  he  thinks  may  be  hinderers  or  re¬ 
provers  of  tlieir  sweet  converse;  he  will  even  cast  a 
jealous  eye  upon  his  gold  and  silver  or  other  property, 
because  these  make  him  a  less  easy  and  manageable 
prey,  and  hence  he  .is  of  necessity  displeased  at  the 
possession  of  them  and  rejoices  at  their  loss;  and  he 
would  like  him  t q  be  wifeless,  childless,  homeless,  as 
well;  and  the  longer  the  better,  for  the  longer  he  is 
all  this,  the, longer  he  will  enjoy  him. 

Therej  are  s^me  sort  of  animals,  such  as  flatterers, 
which  are  dangerous  and  mischievous  enough,  and  yet 
nature  hafc  mingled  a  temporary  pleasure  and  grace 
in  their  composition.  You  may  say  that  a  courtesan 
is  hurtful,  and  disapprove  of  such  creatures  and  their 
practices,  and  yet  for  the  time  they  are  very  pleasant. 
But  the  lover  is  not  only  mischievous  to  his  love,  he 
is  also  extremely  unpleasant  to  live  with.  Equals,  as 
the  proverb  says,  delight  in  equals;  equality  of  years 
inclines  them  to  the  :  same  pleasures,  and  similarity 
begets  friendship,  and  yet  you  may  have  more  than 
enough  even  of  this,  and  compulsion  is  always  said 
to  be  grievous.  Now  the  lover  is  not  only  unlike  his 
beloved,  but  he  forces  himself  upon  him.  For  he  is 
old  and  his  love  is  young,  and  neither  day  nor  night 


396 


PHAEDRUS 

j.  *  y  '  +  , 1  ■ 

will  he  leave  him  if  he  can  help;  and  necessity  and 
the  sting  of  desire  drive  him  on,  and  allure  him  with 
the  pleasure  which  he  receives  from  seeing,  hearing, 
touching,  perceiving  him.  And  therefore  he  is  de¬ 
lighted  to  fasten  upon  him  and  to  minister  to  him. 
But  what  pleasure  or  consolation  can  the  beloved  be 
receiving  all  this  time?  Must  he  not  feel  the  extrem¬ 
ity  of  disgust  when  he  looks  at  an  old  withered  face 
and  the  remainder  to  match,  which  even  in  a  descrip¬ 
tion  is  not  agreeable,  and  quite  detestable  when  you 
are  forced  into  daily  contact  with  them;  moreover  he 
is  jealously  watched  and  guarded  against  everything 
and  everybody,  and  has  to  hear  misplaced* and  exag¬ 
gerated  praises  of  himself,  and  censures' as  inappro¬ 
priate,  which  are  quite  intolerable  wh^n  the  man  is 
sober,  and,  besides  being  intolerable,  are  published  all 
over  the  world  in  all  their  shamelessness  and  weari¬ 
someness  when  he  is  drunk. 

And  not  only  while  his  love  continues  is  he  mis¬ 
chievous  and  unpleasant,  but  when  his  love  ceases  he 
becomes  a  perfidious  enemy  of  him  on  whom  he  show¬ 
ered  his  oaths  and  prayers  and  promises,  and  yet  could 
hardly  prevail  upon  him  to  tolerate  the  tedium  of  his 
company  even  from  motives  of  interest.  The  time 
of  payment  arrives,  and  now  he  is  the  servant  of  an¬ 
other  master;  instead  of  love  and  infatuation,  wisdom 
and  temperance  are  his  bosom’s  lords;  the  man  has 
changed,  but  the  beloved  is  not  aware  of  this ;  he  asks 
for  a  return  and  recalls  to  his  recollection  former  acts 
and  words,  for  he  fancies  that  he  is  talking  to  the  same 
person,  and  the  other,  being  ashamed  and  not  having 
the  courage  to  tell  him  that  he  has  changed,  and  not 
knowing  how  to  make  good  his  promises,  has  now 
grown  virtuous  and  temperate;  he  does  not  want  to 
do  as  he  did  or  to  be  as  he  was  before.  Therefore  he 
runs  away  and  can  but  end  a  defaulter ;  quick  as  the 


PHAEDRUS 


397 


spinning  of  a  teetotum  1  he  changes  pursuit  into  flight, 
and  the  other  is  compelled  to  follow  him  with  passion 
and  imprecation,  not  knowing  that  he  ought  never 
from  the  first  to  have  accepted  a  demented  lover  in¬ 
stead  of  a  sensible  non-lover;  and  that  in  making 
such  a  choice  he  was  yielding  to  a  faithless,  morose, 
envious,  disagreeable  being,  hurtful  to  his  estate,  hurt¬ 
ful  to  his  bodily  constitution,  and  still  more  hurtful 
to  the  cultivation  of  his  mind,  which  is  and  ever  will 
be  the  most  honorable  possession  both  of  gods  and 
men.  Consider  this,  fair  youth,  and  know  that  in  the 
friendship  of  the  lover  there  is  no  real  kindness;  he 
has  an  appetite  and  wants  to  feed  upon  you. 

“  As  wolves  love  lambs  so  lovers  love  their  loves.” 

But,  as  I  said  before,  I  am  speaking  in  verse,  and 
therefore  I  had  better  make  an  end ;  that  is  enough. 

Phaedr.  I  thought  that  you  were  only  half-way  and 
were  going  to  make  a  similar  speech  about  all  the 
advantages  of  accepting  the  non-lover.  Why  don’t 
you  go  on? 

Soc.  Does  not  your  simplicity  observe  that  I  have 
got  out  of  dithyrambics  into  epics ;  and  if  my  censure 
was  in  verse,  what  will  my  praise  be?  Don’t  you  see 
that  I  am  already  overtaken  by  the  Nymphs  to  whom 
you  have  mischievously  exposed  me?  And  therefore 
I  will  only  add  that  the  non-lover  has  all  the  advan¬ 
tages  in  which  the  lover  is  charged  with  being  defi¬ 
cient.  And  now  I  will  say  no  more;  there  has  been 
enough  said  of  both  of  them.  Leaving  the  tale  to  its 
fate,  I  will  cross  the  river  and  make  the  best  of  my 
way  home,  lest  a  worse  thing  be  inflicted  upon  me  by 
you. 

Phaedr.  Not  yet,  Socrates;  not  until  the  heat  of 
the  day  has  passed;  don’t  you  see  that  the  hour  is 

1  Lit.  an  oyster-shell. 


398 


PHAEDRUS 


noon,  and  the  sun  is  standing  over  our  heads?  Let  us 
rather  stay  and  talk  over  what  has  been  said,  and  then 
return  in  the  cool. 

Soc.  Your  love  of  discourse,  Phaedrus,  is  superhu¬ 
man,  simply  marvellous,  and  I  do  not  believe  that 
there  is  any  one  of  your  contemporaries  who  in  one 
way  or  another  has  either  made  or  been  the  cause  of 
others  making  an  equal  number  of  speeches.  I  would 
except  Simmias  the  Theban,  but  all  the  rest  are  far 
behind  you.  And  now  I  do  verily  believe  that  you 
have  been  the  cause  of  another. 

Phaedr .  That  is  good  news.  But  what  do  you 

mean? 

Soc .  I  mean  to  say  that  as  I  was  about  to  cross  the 
stream  the  usual  sign  was  given  to  me;  that  is  the 
sign  which  never  bids  but  always  forbids  me  to  do 
what  I  am  going  to  do ;  and  I  thought  that  I  heard 
a  voice  saying  in  my  ear  that  X  had  been  guilty  of 
impiety,  and  that  I  must  not  go  away  until  I  had 
made  an  atonement.  Now  I  am  a  diviner,  though  not 
a  very  good  one,  but  I  have  enough  religion  for  my 
own  needs,  as  you  might  say  of  a  bad  writer  —  his 
writing  is  good  enough  for  him.  And,  O  my  friend, 
how  singularly  prophetic  is  the  soul!  For  at  the  time 
I  had  a  sort  of  misgiving,  and,  like  Xbycus,  “  I  was 
troubled,”  and  I  suspected  that  I  might  be  receiving 
honor  from  men  at  the  expense  of  sinning  against  the 
gods.  Now  I  am  aware  of  the  error. 

°  Phaedr.  What  error? 

Soc.  That  was  a  dreadful  speech  which  you  brought 
with  you,  and  you  made  me  utter  one  as  bad. 

Phaedr.  How  was  that?  . 

Soc.  Foolish,  I  say,  and  in  a  degree  impious ;  and 

what  can  be  more  dreadful  than  this? 

Phaedr.  Nothing,  if  the  speech  was  really  such  as 

you  describe. 


PHAEDRUS  399 


Soc.  Well,  and  is  not  Eros,  the  son  of  Aphrodite, 
a  mighty  god? 

Phaedr.  That  is  the  language  of  mankind  about 

him.  .  , 

Soc.  But  that  was  not  the  language  of  Lysias 

speech  any  more  than  of  that  other  speech  uttered 
through  my  lips  when  under  the  influence  of  your  en¬ 
chantments,  and  which  I  may  call  yours  and  not  mine. 
For  love,  if  he  be  a  god  or  divine,  can  not  be  evil. 
Yet  this  was  the  error  of  both  our  speeches.  There 
was  also  a  solemnity  about  them  which  was  truly 
charming;  they  had  no  truth  or  honesty  in  them,  and 
yet  they  pretended  to  be  something,  hoping  to  suc¬ 
ceed  in  deceiving  the  manikins  of  earth  and  be  famous 
among  them.  And  therefore  I  must  have  a  purga¬ 
tion.  And  now  I  bethink  me  of  an  ancient  purgation 
of  mythological  error  which  was  devised,  not  by 
Homer,  for  he  never  had  the  wit  to  discover  why  he 
was  blind,  but  by  Stesichorus,  who  was  a  philosopher 
and  knew  the  reason  why ;  and,  therefore,  when  he 
lost  his  eyes,  for  that  was  the  penalty  which  was  in¬ 
flicted  upon  him  for  reviling  the  lovely  Helen,  he 
purged  himself.  And  the  purgation  was  a  recanta¬ 
tion,  which  began  with  the  words :  — 

“  That  was  a  lie  of  mine  when  I  said  that  thou  never  embark- 
edst  on  the  swift  ships,  or  wentest  to  the  walls  of  Troy. 


And  when  he  had  completed  his  poem,  which  is  called 
“  the  recantation,”  immediately  his  sight  returned  to 
him.  Now  I  will  be  wiser  than  either  Stesichorus  or 
Homer,  in  that  I  am  going  to  make  a  recantation 
before  I  lose  mine;  and  this  I  will  attempt,  not  as 
before,  veiled  and  ashamed,  but  with  forehead  bold 

and  bare.  ,  .  _  _  .  , ,  V1  ,  . 

Phaedr.  There  is  nothing  which  I  should  like  bet¬ 
ter  to  hear. 


400 


PHAEDRUS 


Soc .  Only  think,  my  good  Phaedrus,  what  an  utter 

want  of  delicacy  was  shown  in  the  two  discourses;  I 

mean,  in  my  own  and  in  the  one  which  you  recited 

out  of  the  book.  Would  not  any  one  who  was  himself 

•/ 

of  a  noble  and  gentle  nature,  and  who  loved  or  ever 
had  loved  a  nature  like  his  own,  when  he  heard  us 
speaking  of  the  petty  causes  of  lovers’  jealousies,  and 
of  their  exceeding  animosities,  and  the  injuries  which 
they  do  to  their  beloved,  have  imagined  that  our  ideas 
of  love  were  taken  from  some  haunt  of  sailors  to  which 
good  manners  were  unknown  —  he  would  certainly 
never  have  admitted  the  justice  of  our  censure? 
Phaedr.  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  Therefore,  because  I  blush  at  the  thought  of 
this  person,  and  also  because  I  am  afraid  of  the  god 
Love,  I  desire  to  wash  down  that  gall  and  vinegar 
with  a  wholesome  draught ;  and  I  would  counsel 
Lysias  not  to  delay,  but  to  write  another  discourse, 
which  shall  prove  “  ceteris  paribus  ”  that  the  lover 
ought  to  be  accepted  rather  than  the  non-lover. 

Phaedr.  Be  assured  that  he  shall.  You  shall  speak 
the  praises  of  the  lover,  and  Lysias  shall  be  made  to 
write  them  in  another  discourse.  I  will  compel  him 
to  do  this. 

Soc.  You  will  be  true  to  your  nature  in  that,  and 
therefore  I  believe  you. 

Phaedr.  Speak,  and  fear  not. 

Soc.  But  where  is  the  fair  youth  whom  I  was  ad¬ 
dressing,  and  who  ought  to  listen,  in  order  that  he 
may  not  be  misled  by  one  side  before  he  has  heard  the 
other? 

Phaedr.  He  is  close  at  hand,  and  always  at  your 
service. 

Soc.  Know  then,  fair  youth,  that  the  former  dis¬ 
course  was  that  of  a  finely-scented  gentleman,  who 
is  all  myrrh  and  fragrance,  named  Phaedrus,  the  son 


PHAEDRUS 


401 


of  Vain  Man.  And  this  is  the  recantation  of  Stesi- 
choms  the  pious,  who  comes  from  the  town  of  Desire, 
and  is  to  the  following  effect :  That  was  a  lie  in  which 
I  said  that  the  beloved  ought  to  accept  the  non-lover 
and  reject  the  lover,  because  the  one  is  sane,  and  the 
other  mad.  For  that  might  have  been  truly  said  if 
madness  were  simply  an  evil ;  but  there  is  also  a  mad¬ 
ness  which  is  the  special  gift  of  heaven,  and  the  source 
of  the  chief est  blessings  among  men.  For  prophecy 
is  k  madness,  and  the  prophetess  at  Delphi  and  the 
priestesses  of  Dodona,  when  out  of  their  senses  have 
« conferred  great  benefits  on  Hellas,  both  in  public  and 
private  life,  but  when  in  their  senses  few  or  none. 
And  I  might  also  tell  you  how  the  Sibyl  and  other 
persons,  who  have  had  the  gift  of  prophecy,  have  told 
the  future  of  many  an  one  and  guided  them  aright; 
but  that  is  obvious,  and  would  be  tedious. 

There  will  be  more  reason  in  appealing  to  the  an¬ 
cient  inventors  of  names,  who,  if  they  had  thought 
madness  a  disgrace  or  dishonor,  would  never  have 
called  prophecy,  which  is  the  noblest  of  arts,  by  the 
very  same  name  (hclvtuct),  fiavLtcrj)  as  madness,  thus 
inseparably  connecting  them;  but  they  must  have 
thought  that  there  was  an  inspired  madness  which  was 
no  disgrace;  for  the  two  words,  navri/crj  and  fiavL/crj,  are 
ideally  the  same,  and  the  letter  t  is  only  a  modern  and 
tasteless  insertion.  And  this  is  confirmed  by  the  name 
wbxvh  they  gave  to  the  rational  investigation  of  fu¬ 
turity,  whether  made  by  the  help  of  birds  or  other 
signs;  this  as  supplying  from  the  reasoning  faculty 
insight  and  information  to  human  thought  (vovs  and 
laropia ),  they  originally  termed  olovcuo-ri/cr),  but  the 
word  has  been  lately  altered  and  made  sonorous  by 
the  modern  introduction  of  the  letter  Omega  ( olovoia - 
tuct)  and  oLMVKTTucr) ) ,  and  in  proportion  as  [fiavTucr] 
or)  prophecy  is  higher  and  more  perfect  than  divina- 


402 


PHAEDRUS 


tion  both  in  name  and  reality,  in  the  same  proportion 
as  the  ancients  testify,  is  madness  superior  to  a  sane 
mind  ( aco^poavvr]) ,  for  the  one  is  only  of  human,  but 
the  other  of  divine  origin.  Again,  where  plagues  and 
mightiest  woes  have  bred  in  a  race,  owing  to  some 
ancient  wrath,  there  madness,  lifting  up  her  voice 
and  flying  to  prayers  and  rites,  has  come  to  the  res¬ 
cue  of  those  who  are  in  need;  and  he  who  has  part 
in  this  gift,  and  is  truly  possessed  and  duly  out  of  his 
mind,  is  by  the  use  of  purifications  and  mysteries  m$de 
whole  and  delivered  from  evil,  future  as  well  as-  pres¬ 
ent,  and  has  a  release  from  the  calamity  which  afflicts 
him.  There  is  also  a  third  kind  of  madness,  which  is 
a  possession  of  the  Muses;  this  enters  into  a  delicate 
and  virgin  soul,  and  there  inspiring  frenzy,  awakens 
lyric  and  all  other  numbers;  with  these  adorning  the 
myriad  actions  of  ancient  heroes  for  the  instruction 
of  posterity.  But  he  who,  not  being  inspired  and 
having  no  touch  of  madness  in  his  soul,  comes  to  the 
door  and  thinks  that  he  will  get  into  the  temple  by 
the  help  of  art  —  he,  I  say,  and  his  poetry  are  not 
admitted;  the  sane  man  is  nowhere  at  all  when  he 
enters  into  rivalry  with  the  madman. 

I  might  tell  of  many  other  noble  deeds  which  have 
sprung  from  inspired  madness.  And  therefore,  let 
no  one  frighten  or  flutter  us  by  saying  that  temperate 
love  is  preferable  to  mad  love,  but  let  him  further 
show,  if  he  would  carry  off  the  palm,  that  love  is  not 
sent  by  the  gods  for  any  good  to  lover  or  beloved. 
And  we,  on  our  part,  will  prove  in  answer  to  him  that 
the  madness  of  love  is  the  greatest  of  heaven’s  bless¬ 
ings,  and  the  proof  shall  be  one  which  the  wise  will 
receive,  and  the  witling  disbelieve.  And,  first  of  all, 
let  us  inquire  what  is  the  truth  about  the  affections 
and  actions  of  the  soul,  divine  as  well  as  human.  And 
thus  we  begin  our  proof : 


PHAEDRUS 


403 


4 


f  !>ST&e  soul  is  immortal,  for  that  is  immortal  which  is 
motion  ;  but  that  which  moves  and  is  moved 
^^LOther,  in  ceasing  to  move  ceases  also  to  live. 
Therefore,  only  that  which  is  self-moving,  never  fail¬ 
ing  of  self,  never  ceases  to  move,  and  is  the  fountain 
ieginning  of  motion  to  all  that  moves  besides, 
the  beginning  is  unbegotten,  for  that  which  is 
;en  has  a  beginning ;  but  the  beginning  has  no 
ing,  for  if  a  beginning  were  begotten  of  some- 
that  would  have  no  beginning.  But  that,  which 
gotten  must  also  be  indestructible ;  for  if  be- 
twere  destroyed,  there  could  be  no  beginning 
anything,  nor  anything  out  of  a  beginning; 
i  -things  must  have  a  beginning.  And  therefore 
/-moving  is  the  beginning  of  motion;  and  this 
^^^sither  he  destroyed  nor  begotten,  for  in  that  case 
MKhole  heavens  and  all  generation  would  collapse 
«2B|and  still,  and  never  again  have  motion  or  birth. 
■IB  the  self-moving  is  immortal,  he  who  affirms  that 
otion  is  the  very  idea  and  essence  of  the  soul 
)t  be  put  to  confusion.  For  the  body  which  is 
from  without  is  soulless;  but  that  which  is 
from  within  has  a  soul,  and  this  is  involved 
nature  of  the  soul.  But  if  the  soul  be  truly 
to  be  the  self -moving,  then  must  she  also  be 
.t  beginning,  and  immortal.  Enough  of  the 
immortality. 

|r  .form  is  a  theme  of  divine  and  large  discourse ; 
language  may,  however,  speak  of  this  briefly, 
a  figure.  Let  our  figure  be  of  a  composite 
—  a  pair  of  winged  horses  and  a  charioteer. 
Ndwthe  winged  horses  and  the  charioteer  of  the  gods 
.  all  of  them  noble,  and  of  noble  breed,  while  ours 
mixed ;  and  we  have  a  charioteer  who  drives  them 
pair,  and  one  of  them  is  noble  and  of  noble  origin, 
the  other  is  ignoble  and  of  ignoble  origin;  and, 


404 


PHAEDRUS 


as  might  be  expected,  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
in  managing  them.  I  will  endeavor  to  explain  toym 
in  what  way  the  mortal  differs  from  the  immortal 
creature.  The  soul  or  animate  being  has  the  care' of 
the  inanimate,  and  traverses  the  wdiole  heavemSHH 
vers  f orms  appearing ;  —  when  perfect  and  f 

winged  she  soars  upward,  and  is  the  ruler  of  the 
verse;  while  the  imperfect  soul  loses  her  fealh^gj 
and  drooping  in  her  flight  at  last  settles  on  the  Solid 
ground  —  there,  finding  a  home,  she  reqe^fe; 
earthly  frame  which  appears  to  be  self-move< 
really  moved  by  her  power;  and  this  compgslll 
soul  and  body  is  called  a  living  and  mortal  crdf^vijte.  \ 
For  no  such  union  can  be  reasonably  believed,  ’Oif%t 
all  proved  to  be  other  than  mortal;  although  fa 
may  imagine  a  god  whom,  not  having  seen  nor  's*&*d 
known,  we  invent  —  such  an  one,  an  immortal  crea¬ 
ture  having  a  body,  and  having  also  a  soul  which 
been  united  in  all  time.  Let  that,  however,  beJa.siG'ij] 
wills,  and  be  spoken  of  acceptably  to  him.  Bu£-infc 
reason  why  the  soul  loses  her  feathers  should  be  ex 
plained,  and  is  as  follows: 

The  wing  is  intended  to  soar  aloft  and  caqn^^thw; 
which  gravitates  downwards  into  the  upper  r  e#.M 
which  is  the  dwelling  of  the  gods;  and  this  isntiiSn 
element  of  the  body  which  is  most  akin  to  thelf^^^f 
\]\Tow  the  divine  is  beauty,  wisdom,  goodness, 
like;  and  by  these  the  wing  of  the  soul  is  noui*J 
and  grows  apace;  but  when  fed  upon  evil  and  f 
ness,  and  the  like,  wastes  and  falls  away.  Zeus, 
mighty  lord  holding  the  reins  of  a  winged  char 
leads  the  way  in  heaven,  ordering  all  and  caring 
all;  and  there  follows  him  the  heavenly  array  of  g 
and  demi-gods,  divided  into  eleven  bands;  for  o: 
Hestia  is  left  at  home  in  the  house  of  heaven; 
the  rest  of  the  twelve  greater  deities  march  in  t 


4 


r. " 


* 


PHAEDRUS 


405 


appointed  order.  And  they  see  in  the  interior  of 
heaven  many  blessed  sights;  and  there  are  ways  to 
and  fro,  along  which  the  happy  gods  are  passing,  each 
one  fulfilling  his  own  work;  and  any  one  may  follow 
who  pleases,  for  jealousy  has  no  place  in  the  heavenly 
choir.  This  is  within  the  heaven.  But  when  they  go 
to  feast  and  festival,  then  they  move  right  up  the 
steep  ascent,  and  mount  the  top  of  the  dome  of  heaven. 
Now  the  chariots  of  the  gods,  self-balanced,  upward 
glide  in  obedience  to  the  rein ;  but  the  others  have  a 
difficulty,  for  the  steed  who  has  evil  in  him,  if  he  has 
not  been  properly  trained  by  the  charioteer,  gravitates 
and  inclines  and  sinks  towards  the  earth :  —  and  this 
is  the  hour  of  agony  and  extremest  conflict  of  the  soul. 
For  the  immortal  souls,  when  they  are  at  the  end  of 
their  course,  go  out  and  stand  upon  the  back  of 
heaven,  and  the  revolution  of  the  spheres  carries  them 
round,  and  they  behold  the  world  beyond.  Now  of 
the  heaven  which  is  above  the  heavens,  no  earthly  poet 
has  sung  or  ever  will  sing  in  a  worthy  manner.  But 
I  must  tell,  for  I  am  bound  to  speak  truly  when  speak¬ 
ing  of  the  truth.  The  colorless  and  formless  and  in-% 
tangible  essence  is  visible  to  the  mind,  which  is  the  J 
only  lord  of  the  soul.  Circling  around  this  in  the 
region  above  the  heavens  is  the  place  of  true  knowl¬ 
edge.  And  as  the  divine  intelligence,  and  that  of 
every  other  soul  which  is  rightly  nourished,  is  fed  upon 
mind  and  pure  knowledge,  such  an  intelligent  soul  is 
glad  at  once  more  beholding  being;  and  feeding  on 
the  sight  of  truth  is  replenished,  until  the  revolution 
of  the  worlds  brings  her  round  again  to  the  same  place. 
During  the  revolution  she  beholds  justice,  temper¬ 
ance,  and  knowledge  absolute,  not  in  the  form  of  gen¬ 
eration  or  of  relation,  which  men  call  existence,  but 
knowledge  absolute  in  existence  absolute;  and  be¬ 
holding  other  existences  in  like  manner,  and  feeding 


406 


PHAEDRUS 


upon  them,  she  passes  down  into  the  interior  of  the 
heavens  and  returns  home,  and  there  the  charioteer 
putting  up  his  horses  at  the  stall,  gives  them  ambrosia 
to  eat  and  nectar  to  drink. 

This  is  the  life  of  the  gods;  but  of  other  souls,  that 
which  follows  God  best  and  is  likest  to  him  lifts  the 
head  of  the  charioteer  into  the  outer  world,  and  is  car¬ 
ried  round  in  the  revolution,  troubled  indeed  by  the 
steeds,  and  beholding  true  being,  but  hardly ;  another 
rises  and  falls,  and  sees,  and  again  fails  to  see  by  rea¬ 
son  of  the  unruliness  of  the  steeds.  The  rest  of  the 
souls  are  also  longing  after  the  upper  world  and  they 
all  follow,  but  not  being  strong  enough  they  sink  intcK 
the  gulf,  as  they  are  carried  round,  plunging,  tread¬ 
ing  on  one  another,  striving  to  be  first;  and  there  is 
confusion  and  the  extremity  of  effort,  and  many  of 
them  are  lamed  or  have  their  wings  broken  through 
the  ill-driving  of  the  charioteers ;  and  all  of  them  after 
a  fruitless  toil  go  away  without  being  initiated  into 
the  mysteries  of  being,  and  are  nursed  with  the  food 
of  opinion.  The  reason  of  their  great  desire  to  behold 
•the  plain  of  truth  is  that  the  food  which  is  suited  to 
the  highest  part  of  the  soul  comes  out  of  that  meadow; 
and  the  wing  on  which  the  soul  soars  is  nourished  with 
this.  And  there  is  a  law  of  the  goddess  Retribution, 
that  the  soul  which  attains  any  vision  of  truth  in  com¬ 
pany  with  the  god  is  preserved  from  harm  until  the 
next  period,  and  he  who  always  attains  is  always  un¬ 
harmed.  But  when  she  is  unable  to  follow,  and  fails 
to  behold  the  vision  of  truth,  and  through  some  ill-hap 
sinks  beneath  the  double  load  of  forgetfulness  and 
vice,  and  her  feathers  fall  from  her  and  she  drops  to 
earth,  then  the  law  ordains  that  this  soul  shall  in  the 
first  generation  pass,  not  into  that  of  any  other  ani- 
Tnal,  but  only  of  man;  and  the  soul  which  has  seen 
most  of  truth  shall  come  to  the  birth  as  a  philosopher, 


PHAEDRUS 


407 


or  artist,  or  musician,  or  lover;  that  which  has  seen 
truth  in  the  second  degree  shall  be  a  righteous  king 
or  warrior  or  lord;  the  soul  which  is  ol  the  third  class 
shall  be  a  politician,  or  economist,  or  trader;  the 
fourth  shall  be  a  lover  of  gymnastic  toils,  or  a  physi¬ 
cian  ;  the  fifth  a  prophet  or  hierophant ;  to  the  sixth 
a  poet  or  imitator  will  be  appropriate;  to  the  seventh 
the  life  of  an  artisan  or  husbandman ;  to  the  eighth 
that  of  a  sophist  or  demagogue;  to  the  ninth  that  of 
a  tyrant ;  —  ail  these  are  states  of  probation,  in  which 
he  who  lives  righteously  improves,  and  he  who  lives 
unrighteously  deteriorates  his  lot. 

Ten  thousand  years  must  elapse  before  the  soul  can 
return  to  the  place  from  whence  she  came,  for  she  can 
not  grow  her  wings  in  less;  only  the  soul  of  a  phi¬ 
losopher,  guileless  and  true,  or  the  soul  of  a  lover,  who 
is  not  without  philosophy,  may  acquire  wings  in  the 
i  third  recurring  period  of  a  thousand  years :  and  if 
they  choose  this  life  three  times  in  succession,  then  they 
have  their  wings  given  them,  and  go  away  at  the  end 
of  three  thousand  years.  But  the  others  receive  judg¬ 
ment  when  they  have  completed  their  first  life,  and 
after  the  judgment  they  go,  some  of  them  to  the 
houses  of  correction  which  are  under  the  earth,  and 
are  punished;  others  to  some  place  in  heaven  whither 
they  are  lightly  borne  by  justice,  and  there  they  live 
in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  life  which  they  led  heie 
when  in  the  form  of  men.  And  at  the  end  of  the  first 
thousand  years  the  good  souls  and  also  the  evil  souls 
both  come  to  cast  lots  and  choose  their  second  life,  and 
they  may  take  any  that  they  like.  And  then  the  soul 
of  the  man  may  pass  into  the  life  of  a  beast,  or  from 
the  beast  again  into  the  man.  But  the  soul  of  him  who 
has  never  seen  the  truth  will  not  pass  into  the  human 
form,  for  man  ought  to  have  intelligence,  as  they  say, 
“  secundum  speciem,”  proceeding  from  many  partic- 


408 


PHAEDRUS 


ulars  of  sense  to  one  conception  of  reason ;  and  this 
is  the  recollection  of  those  thing's  which  our  soul  once 
saw  when  in  company  with  God  —  when  looking 
down  from  above  on  that  which  we  now  call  being 
and  upwards  towards  the  true  being.  And  therefore 
the  mind  of  the  philosopher  alone  has  wings ;  and  this 
is  just,  for  he  is- always,  according  to  the  measure  of 
his  abilities,  clinging  in  recollection  to  those  things  in 
which  God  abides,  and  in  beholding  which  He  is  what 
he  is.  And  he  who  employs  aright  these  memories  is 
ever  being  initiated  into  perfect  mysteries  and  alone 
becomes  truly  perfect.  But,  as  he  forgets  earthly 
interests  and  is  rapt  in  the  divine,  the  vulgar  deem 
him  mad,  and  rebuke  him ;  they  do  not  see  that  he  is 
inspired. 

Thus  far  I  have  been  speaking  of  the  fourth  and 
last  kind  of  madness,  which  is  imputed  to  him  who, 
when  he  sees  the  beauty  of  earth,  is  transported  with 
the  recollection  of  the  true  beauty;  he  would  like  to 
fly  away,  but  he  can  not ;  he  is  like  a  bird  fluttering 
and  looking  upward  and  careless  of  the  world  below ; 
and  he  is  therefore  esteemed  mad.  And  I  have  shown 
that  this  is  of  all  inspirations  the  noblest  and  best,  and 
comes  of  the  best,  and  that  he  who  has  part  or  lot  in 
this  madness  is  called  a  lover  of  the  beautiful.  For 
as  has  been  already  said,  every  soul  of  man  has  in  the 
vTay  of  nature  beheld  true  being;  this  was  the  con¬ 
dition  of  her  passing  into  the  form  of  man.  But  all 
men  do  not  easily  recall  the  things  of  the  other  world ; 
they  may  have  seen  them  for  a  short  time  only,  or  they 
may  have  been  unfortunate  when  they  fell* to  earth, 
and  may  have  lost  the  memory  of  the  holy  things 
which  they  saw  there  through  some  evil  and  corrupt¬ 
ing  association.  Few  there  are  who  retain  the  remem¬ 
brance  of  them  sufficiently;  and  they,  when  they  be¬ 
hold  any  image  of  that  other  world,  are  rapt  in  amaze- 


PHAEDRUS 


409 


ment;  but  they  are  ignorant  of  what  this  means, 
because  they  have  no  clear  perceptions.  For  there  is 
no  light  in  the  earthly  copies  of  justice  or  temper¬ 
ance  or  any  of  the  higher  qualities  which  are  precious 
to  souls :  they  are  seen  but  through  a  glass  dimly ;  and 
there  are  few  who,  going  to  the  images,  behold  in  them 
the  realities,  and  they  only  with  difficulty.  They 
might  have  seen  beauty  shining  in  brightness,  when, 
with  the  happy  band  following  in  the  train  of  Zeus, 
as  we  philosophers  did,  or  with  other  gods  as  others 
did,  they  saw  a  vision  and  were  initiated  into  most 
blessed  mysteries,  which  we  celebrated  in  our  state  of 
innocence;  and  having  mo  feeling  of  evils  as  yet  to 
come ;  beholding  apparitions  innocent  and  simple  and 
calm  and  happy  as  in  a  mystery;  shining  in  pure  light, 
pure  ourselves  and  not  yet  enshrined  in  that  living 
tomb  which  we  carry  about,  now  that  we  are  impris¬ 
oned  in  the  body,  as  in  an  oyster-shell.  Let  me  linger 
thus  long  over  the  memory  of  scenes  which  have 
.  passed  away. 

But  of  beauty,  I  repeat  again  that  we  saw  her  there 
shining  in  company  with  the  celestial  forms;  and 
coming  to  earth  we  find  her  here  too,  shining  in  clear¬ 
ness  through  the  clearest  aperture  of  sense.  For 
sight  is  the  keenest  of  our  bodily  senses;  though  not 
by  that  is  wisdom  seen,  for  her  loveliness  would  have 
been  transporting  if  there  had  been  a  visible  image 
of  her,  and  this  is  true  of  the  loveliness  of  the  other 
ideas  as  well.  But  beauty  only  has  this  portion,  that 
she  is  at  once  the  loveliest  and  also  the  most  apparent. 
Now  he  who  has  not  been  lately  initiated  or  who  has 
become  corrupted,  is  not  easily  carried  out  of  this 
world  to  the  sight  of  absolute  beauty  in  the  other;  he 
looks  only  at  that  which  has  the  name  of  beauty  in 
this  world,  and  instead  of  being  awed  at  the  sight  of 
her,  like  a  brutish  beast  he  rushes  on  to  enjoy  and 


410 


PHAEDRUS 


beget;  he  takes  wantonness  to  his  bosom,  and  is  not 
afraid  or  ashamed  of  pursuing  pleasure  in  violation 
of  nature.  But  he  whose  initiation  is  recent,  and  who 
has  been  the  spectator  of  many  glories  in  the  other 
world,  is  amazed  when  he  sees  any  one  having  a  god¬ 
like  face  or  form,  which  is  the  expression  or  imitation 
of  divine  beauty ;  and  at  first  a  shudder  runs  through 
him,  and  some  “  misgiving  ”  of  a  former  world  steals 
over  him;  then  looking  upon  the  face  of  his  beloved 
as  of  a  god  he  reverences  him,  and  if  he  were  not 
afraid  of  being  thought  a  downright  madman,  he 
would  sacrifice  to  his  beloved  as  to  the  image  of  a 
god ;  then  as  he  gazes  on  him  there  is  a  sort  of  reaction, 
and  the  shudder  naturally  passes  into  an  unusual 
heat  and  perspiration;  for,  as  he  receives  the  effluence 
of  beauty  through  the  eyes,  the  wing  moistens  and  he 
warms.  And  as  he  warms,  the  parts  out  of  which  the 
wing  grew,  and  which  had  been  hitherto  closed  and 
rigid,  and  had  prevented  the  wing  from  shooting  forth 
are  melted,  and  as  nourishment  streams  upon  him, 
the  lower  end  of  the  wring  begins  to  swell  and  grow 
from  the  root  upwards,  extending  under  the  whole 
soul  —  for  once  the  whole  was  winged.  Now  during 
this  process  the  whole  soul  is  in  a  state  of  effervescence 
and  irritation,  like  the  state  of  irritation  and  pain  in 
the  gums  at  the  time  of  cutting  teeth ;  in  like  manner 
the  soul  when  beginning  to  grow  wings  has  inflamma¬ 
tion  and  pains  and  ticklings,  and  when  looking  at  the 
beauty  of  youth  she  receives  the  sensible  warm  trac¬ 
tion  of  particles  which  flow  towards  her,  therefore 
called  attraction  (I>epo?) ,  and  is  refreshed  and  warmed 
by  them,  and  then  she  ceases  from  her  pain  with 
joy.  But  when  she  is  separated  and  her  moisture 
fails,  then  the  orifices  of  the  passages  out  of  which  the 
wing  shoots  dry  up  and  close,  and  intercept  the  germ 
of  the  wing ;  which,  being  shut  up  within  in  company 


PHAEDRUS 


411 


with  desire,  throbbing  as  with  the  pulsations  of  an 
artery,  pricks  the  aperture  which  is  nearest,  until  at 
length  the  entire  soul  is  pierced  and  maddened  and 
pained,  and  at  the  recollection  of  beauty  is  again  de¬ 
lighted.  And  from  both  of  them  together  the  soul 
is  oppressed  at  the  strangeness  of  her  condition,  and 
is  in  a  great  strait  and  excitement,  and  in  her  madness 
can  neither  sleep  by  night  nor  abide  in  her  place  by 
day.  And  wherever  she  thinks  that  she  will  behold 
the  beautiful  one,  thither  in  her  desire  she  runs.  And 
when  she  has  seen  him,  and  drunk  rivers  of  desire, 
her  constraint  is  loosened,  and  she  is  refreshed,  and 
has  no  more  pangs  and  pains;  and  this  is  the  sweet¬ 
est  of  all  pleasures  at  the  time,  and  is  the  reason  why 
the  soul  of  the  lover  never  forsakes  his  beautiful  one, 
whom  he  esteems  above  all;  he  has  forgotten  his 
mother  and  brethren  and  companions,  and  he  thinks 
nothing  of  the  neglect  and  loss  of  his  property;  and 
as  to  the  rules  and  proprieties  of  life,  on  which  he 
formerly  prided  himself,  he  now  despises  them,  and 
is  ready  to  sleep  and  serve,  wherever  he  is  allowed,  as 
near  as  he  can  to  his  beautiful  one  who  is  not  only  the 
object  of  his  worship,  but  the  only  physician  who  can 
heal  him  in  his  extreme  agony.  And  this  state,  my 
dear  imaginary  youth,  is  by  men  called  love,  and 
among  the  gods  has  a  name  which  you,  in  your  siim 
plicity,  may  be  inclined  to  mock;  there  are  two  lines 
in  honor  of  love  in  the  Homeric  Apocrypha  in  which 
the  name  occurs.  One  of  them  is  rather  outrageous, 
and  is  not  quite  metrical ;  they  are  as  follow :  — 

“  Mortals  call  him  Eros  (love), 

But  the  immortals  call  him  Pteros  (fluttering  dove), 
Because  fluttering  of  wings  is  a  necessity  to  him.” 

You  may  believe  this  or  not  as  you  like.  At  any  rate 
the  loves  of  lovers  and  their  causes  are  such  as  I  have 
described. 


412 


PHAEDRUS 


Now  the  lover  who  is  the  attendant  of  Zeus  is  bet¬ 
ter  able  to  bear  the  winged  god,  and  can  endure  a 
heavier  burden;  but  the  attendants  and  companions 
of  Ares,  when  under  the  influence  of  love,  if  they 
fancy  that  they  have  been  at  all  wronged,  are  ready 
to  kill  and  put  an  end  to  themselves  and  their  beloved. 
And  in  like  manner  he  who  follows  in  the  train  of 
any  other  god  honors  him,  and  imitates  him  as  far  as 
he  is  able  while  the  impression  lasts;  and  this  is  his 
way  of  life  and  the  manner  of  his  behavior  to  his  be¬ 
loved  and  to  every  other  in  the  first  period  of  his 
earthly  existence.  Every  one  chooses  the  object  of 
his  affections  according  to  his  character,  and  this  he 
makes  his  god,  and  fashions  and  adorns  as  a  sort  of 
image  which  he  is  to  fall  down  and  worship.  The  fol¬ 
lowers  of  Zeus  desire  that  their  beloved  should  have 
a  soul  like  him;  and,  therefore,  they  seek  some  philo¬ 
sophical  and  imperial  nature,  and  wdien  they  have 
found  him  and  loved  him,  they  do  all  they  can  to  cre¬ 
ate  such  a  nature  in  him,  and  if  they  have  no  experi¬ 
ence  hitherto,  they  learn  of  any  one  who  can  teach 
them,  and  themselves  follow  in  the  same  way.  And 
they  have  the  less  difficulty  in  finding  the  nature  of 
their  own  god  in  themselves,  because  they  have  been 
compelled  to  gaze  intensely  on  him;  their  recollection 
clings  to  him,  and  they  become  possessed  by  him,  and 
receive  his  character  and  ways,  as  far  as  man  can  par¬ 
ticipate  in  God.  These  they  attribute  to  the  beloved, 
and  they  love  him  all  the  more,  and  if  they  draw  in¬ 
spiration  from  Zeus,  like  the  Bacchic  Nymphs,  they 
pour  this  out  upon  him  in  order  to  make  him  as  like 
their  god  as  possible.  But  those  who  are  the  followers 
of  Hera  seek  a  royal  love,  and  when  they  have  found 
him  they  do  the  same  with  him;  and  in  like  manner 
the  followers  of  Apollo,  and  of  every  other  god  walk¬ 
ing  in  the  ways  of  their  god,  seek  a  love  who  is  to  be 


PHAEDRUS 


413 


like  their  god,  and  when  they  have  found  him,  they 
themselves  imitate  their  god,  and  persuade  their  love 
to  do  the  same,  and  bring  him  into  harmony  with  the 
form  and  ways  of  the  god  as  far  as  they  can;  for  they 
have  no  feelings  of  envy  or  mean  enmity  towards  their 
beloved,  but  they  do  their  utmost  to  create  in  him  the 
greatest  likeness  of  themselves  and  the  god  whom  they 
honor.  And  the  desire  of  the  lover,  if  effected,  and 
the  initiation  of  which  I  speak  into  the  mysteries  of 
true  love,  is  thus  fair  and  blissful  to  the  beloved  when 
he  is  chosen  by  the  lover  who  is  driven  mad  by  love. 
Now  the  beloved  or  chosen  one  is  taken  captive  in  the 
following  manner:  — 

As  I  said  at  the  beginning  of  this  tale,  I  divided 
each  soul  into  three  parts,  two  of  them  having  the 
forms  of  horses  and  the  third  that  of  a  charioteer ;  and 
i  one  of  the  horses  was  good  and  the  other  bad,  but  I 
;  have  not  yet  explained  the  virtue  and  vice  of  either, 
and  to  that  I  will  now  proceed.  The  well-conditioned 
horse  is  erect  and  well-formed;  he  has  a  lofty  neck 
I  and  an  aquiline  nose,  and  his  color  is  white,  and  he  has 
dark  eyes  and  is  a  lover  of  honor  and  modesty  and 
temperance,  and  the  follower  of  true  glory;  he  needs 
not  the  touch  of  the  whip,  but  is  guided  by  word  and 
admonition  only.  Whereas  the  other  is  a  large  mis¬ 
shapen  animal,  put  together  anyhow;  he  has  a  strong 
i  short  neck ;  he  is  flat-faced  and  of  a  dark  color,  grey- 
eyed  and  bloodshot,  the  mate  of  insolence  and  pride, 
shag-eared,  deaf,  hardly  yielding  to  blow  or  spur. 
Now  when  the  charioteer  beholds  the  vision  of  love, 
and  has  his  whole  soul  warmed  with  sense,  and  is  full 
of  tickling  and  desire,  the  obedient  steed  then  as  always 
under  the  government  of  shame,  refrains  himself  from 
leaping  on  the  beloved ;  but  the  other,  instead  of  heed¬ 
ing  the  blows  of  the  whip,  prances  away  and  gives  all 
manner  of  trouble  to  his  companion  and  to  the  char- 


414 


PHAEDRUS 


ioteer,  and  urges  them  on  toward  the  beloved  and 
reminds  them  of  the  joys  of  love.  They  at  first  indig¬ 
nantly  oppose  him  and  will  not  be  urged  on  to  do 
terrible  and  unlawful  deeds;  but  at  last,  when  there  is 
no  end  of  evil,  they  yield  and  suffer  themselves  to  be 
led  on  to  do  as  he  bids  them.  And  now  they  are  at 
the  spot  and  behold  the  flashing  beauty  of  the  beloved. 
But  when  the  charioteer  sees  that,  his  memory  is  car¬ 
ried  to  the  true  beauty,  and  he  beholds  her  in  company 
with  Modesty  set  in  her  holy  place.  And  when  he 
sees  her  he  is  afraid  and  falls  back  in  adoration,  and 
in  falling  is  compelled  to  pull  back  the  reins,  which  he 
does  with  such  force  as  to  bring  both  the  steeds  on 
their  haunches,  the  one  willing  and  unresisting,  the 
unruly  one  very  unwilling;  and  when  they  have  gone 
back  a  little,  the  one  is  overflowing  with  shame  and 
wonder,  and  pours  forth  rivers  of  perspiration  over 
the  entire  soul ;  the  other,  when  the  pain  is  over  which 
the  bridle  and  the  fall  had  given  him,  having  with  dif¬ 
ficulty  taken  breath,  is  full  of  wrath  and  reproaches, 
which  he  heaps  upon  the  charioteer  and  his  fellow- 
steed,  as  though  from  wrant  of  courage  and  manhood 
they  had  been  false  to  their  agreement  and  guilty  of 
desertion.  And,  when  they  again  decline,  he  forces 
them  on,  and  will  scarce  yield  to  their  request  that 
he  would  wait  until  another  time.  Returning  at  the 
appointed  hour,  they  make  as  if  they  had  forgotten, 
and  he  reminds  them,  fighting  and  neighing  and  drag¬ 
ging  them,  until  at  length  he  on  the  same  thoughts 
intent,  forces  them  to  draw  near.  And  when  they  are 
near  he  stoops  his  head  and  puts  up  his  tail,  and  takes 
the  bit  in  his  mouth  and  pulls  shamelessly.  Then  the 
charioteer  is  worse  off  than  ever;  he  drops  at  the  very 
start,  and  with  still  greater  violence  draws  the  bit  out 
of  the  teeth  of  the  wild  steed  and  covers  his  abusive 
tongue  and  jaws  with  blood,  and  forces  his  legs  and 


PHAEDRUS 


415 


haunches  to  the  ground  and  punishes  him  sorely.  And 
when  this  has  happened  several  times  and  the  villain 
has  ceased  from  his  wanton  way,  he  is  tamed  and  hum¬ 
bled,  and  follows  the  will  of  the  charioteer,  and  when 
he  sees  the  beautiful  one  he  is  ready  to  die  of  fear. 
And  from  that  time  forward  the  soul  of  the  lover  fol¬ 
lows  the  beloved  in  modesty  and  holy  fear. 

And  so  the  beloved  who,  like  a  god,  has  received 
every  true  and  loyal  service  from  his  lover,  not  in 
pretence  but  in  reality,  being  also  himself  of  a  nature 
friendly  to  his  admirer,  if  in  former  days  he  has 
blushed  to  own  his  passion  and  turned  away  his  lover, 
because  his  youthful  companions  or  others  slander¬ 
ously  told  him  that  he  would  be  disgraced,  now  as 
years  advance,  at  the  appointed  age  and  time  is  led 
to  receive  him  into  communion.  For  fate  which  has 
ordained  that  there  shall  be  no  friendship  among  the 
evil  has  also  ordained  that  there  shall  ever  be  friend¬ 
ship  among  the  good.  And  when  he  has  received  him 
into  communion  and  intimacv,  then  the  beloved  is 
amazed  at  the  good  will  of  the  lover;  he  recognizes 
that  the  inspired  friend  is  worth  all  other  friendship 
or  kinships,  which  have  nothing  of  friendship  in  them 
in  comparison.  And  as  he  continues  to  feel  this  and 
approaches  and  embraces  him,  in  gymnastic  exercises 
and  at  other  times  of  meeting,  then  does  the  fountain 
of  that  stream,  which  Zeus  when  he  was  in  love  with 
Ganymede  called  desire,  overflow  upon  the  lover,  and 
some  enters  into  his  soul,  and  some  when  he  is  filled 
flows  out  again,  and  as  a  breeze  or  an  echo  leaps  from 
the  smooth  rocks  and  rebounds  to  them  again,  so  does 
the  stream  of  beauty,  passing  the  eyes  which  are  the 
natural  doors  and  windows  of  the  soul,  return  again 
to  the  beautiful  one;  there  arriving  and  fluttering  the 
passages  of  the  wings,  and  watering  them  and  inclin¬ 
ing  them  to  grow,  and  filling  the  soul  of  the  beloved 


416 


PHAEDRUS 


also  with  love.  And  thus  he  loves,  but  he  knows  not 
what ;  he  does  not  understand  and  can  not  explain  his 
own  state;  he  appears  to  have  caught  the  infection 
of  another’s  eye;  the  lover  is  his  mirror  in  whom  he 
is  beholding  himself,  but  he  is  not  aware  of  this. 
When  he  is  with  the  lover,  both  cease  from  their  pain, 
but  when  he  is  away  then  he  longs  as  he  is  longed  for, 
and  has  love’s  image,  love  for  love  ( Anteros)  lodging 
in  his  breast,  which  he  calls  and  deems  not  love  but 
friendship  only,  and  his  desire  is  as  the  desire  of  the 
other,  but  weaker;  he  wants  to  see  him,  touch  him, 
kiss,  embrace  him,  and  not  long  afterwards  his  desire 
is  accomplished.  Now,  when  they  meet,  the  wanton 
steed  of  the  lover  has  a  word  to  say  to  the  charioteer ; 
he  would  like  to  have  a  little  pleasure  as  a  return  for 
many  pains,  but  the  wanton  steed  of  the  beloved  says 
not  a  word,  for  he  is  bursting  with  passion  which  he 
understands  not,  but  he  throws  his  arms  round  the 
lover  and  embraces  him  as  his  dearest  friend;  and, 
when  they  are  side  by  side,  he  is  not  in  a  state  in  which 
he  can  refuse  the  lover  anything,  if  he  ask  him,  while 
his  fellow-steed  and  the  charioteer  oppose  him  with 
shame  and  reason.  After  this  their  happiness  depends 
upon  their  self-control;  if  the  better  elements  of  the 
mind  which  lead  to  order  and  philosophy  prevail,  then 
they  pass  their  life  in  this  world  in  happiness  and  har¬ 
mony  —  masters  of  themselves  and  orderly  —  ensla¬ 
ving  the  vicious  and  emancipating  the  virtuous  ele¬ 
ments;  and  when  the  end  comes,  being  light  and 
ready  to  fly  away,  they  conquer  in  one  of  the  three 
heavenly  or  truly  Olympian  victories ;  nor  can  human 
discipline  or  divine  inspiration  confer  any  greater 
blessing  on  man  than  this.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  leave  philosophy  and  lead  the  lower  life  of  ambi¬ 
tion,  then,  probably  in  the  dark  or  in  some  other  care¬ 
less  hour,  the  two  wanton  animals  take  the  two  souls 


PHAEDRUS 


417 


when  off  their  guard  and  bring  them  together,  and 
they  accomplish  that  desire  of  their  hearts  which  to 
the  many  is  bliss;  and  this  having  once  enjoyed  they 
continue  to  enjoy,  yet  rarely  because  they  have  not 
the  approval  of  the  whole  soul.  They  too  are  dear, 
but  not  so  dear  to  one  another  as  the  others,  either  at 
the  time  of  their  love  or  afterwards.  They  consider 
that  they  have  given  and  taken  from  each  other  the 
most  sacred  pledges,  and  they  may  not  break  them 
and  fall  into  enmity.  At  last  they  pass  out  of  the 
body,  unwinged,  but  eager  to  soar,  and  thus  obtain  no 
mean  reward  of  love  and  madness.  For  those  who 
have  once  begun  the  heavenward  pilgrimage  may  not 
go  down  again  to  darkness  and  the  journey  beneath 
the  earth,  but  they  live  in  light  always;  happy  com¬ 
panions  in  their  pilgrimage,  and  when  the  time  comes 
at  which  they  receive  their  wings  they  have  the  same 
plumage  because  of  their  love. 

Thus  great  are  the  heavenly  blessings  which  the 
friendship  of  a  lover  will  confer  on  you,  my  youth. 
Whereas  the  attachment  of  the  non-lover  which  is 
just  a  vulgar  compound  of  temperance  and  niggardly 
earthly  ways  and  motives,  will  breed  meanness  — 
praised  by  the  vulgar  as  virtue  in  your  inmost  soul; 
will  send  you  bowling  round  the  earth  during  a  period 
of  nine  thousand  years,  and  leave  you  a  fool  in  the 
world  below. 

And  thus,  dear  Eros,  I  have  made  and  paid  my 
recantation,  as  well  as  I  could  and  as  fairly  as  I  could; 
the  poetical  figures  I  was  compelled  to  use,  because 
Phaedrus  would  have  them.  And  now  forgive  the 
past  and  accept  the  present,  and  be  gracious  and  mer¬ 
ciful  to  me,  and  do  not  deprive  me  of  sight  or  take 
from  me  the  art  of  love,  but  grant  that  I  may  be  yet 
more  esteemed  in  the  eyes  of  the  fair.  And  if  Phae¬ 
drus  or  I  myself  said  anything  objectionable  in  oi je 


418 


PHAEDKUS 


first  speeches,  blame  Lysias,  who  is  the  father  of  the 
brat,  and  let  us  have  no  more  of  his  progeny ;  bid  him 
study  philosophy,  like  his  brother  Polemarchus;  and 
then  his  lover  Phaedrus  will  no  longer  halt  between 
two,  but  dedicate  himself  wholly  to  love  and  philo¬ 
sophical  discourses. 

Phaedr .  I  say  with  you,  Socrates,  may  this  come 
true  if  this  be  for  my  good.  *  But  why  did  you  make 
this  discourse  of  yours  so  much  finer  than  the  other? 
I  wonder  at  that.  And  I  begin  to  be  afraid  that  I 
shall  lose  conceit  of  Lysias,  even  if  he  be  willing  to 
make  another  as  long  as  yours,  which  I  doubt.  For 
one  of  our  politicians  lately  took  to  abusing  him  on 
this  very  account;  he  would  insist  on  calling  him  a 
speech -writer.  So  that  a  feeling  of  pride  may  prob¬ 
ably  induce  him  to  give  up  writing. 

Soc .  That  is  an  amusing  notion;  but  I  think  that 
you  are  a  little  mistaken  in  your  friend  if  you  imagine 
that  he  is  frightened  at  every  noise;  and,  possibly, 
you  think  that  his  assailant  was  in  earnest? 

Phaedr .  I  thought,  Socrates,  that  he  was.  And 
you  are  aware  that  the  most  powerful  and  consider¬ 
able  men  among  our  statesmen  are  ashamed  of  wri¬ 
ting  speeches  and  leaving  them  in  a  written  form 
because  they  are  afraid  of  posterity,  and  do  not  like 
to  be  called  sophists. 

Soc.  I  don’t  know  whether  you  are  aware,  Phae¬ 
drus,  that  the  “  sweet  elbow  ” 1  of  which  the  proverb 
speaks  is  really  derived  from  the  long  and  difficult 
arm  of  the  Nile.  And  you  appear  to  be  equally  un¬ 
aware  of  the  fact  that  this  sweet  elbow  of  theirs  is 
also  a  long  arm.  F or  there  is  nothing  of  which  great 
politicians  are  so  fond  as  of  writing  speeches,  which 
they  bequeath  to  posterity.  And  when  they  write 

1  A  proverb,  like  “  the  grapes  are  sour,”  applied  to  pleasures^which  can 
not  be  had,  meaning  sweet  things  which  are  out  of  the  reach  of  the  mouth. 


PHAEDRUS 


419 


them,  out  of  gratitude  to  their  admirers,  they  append 
their  names  at  the  top. 

Phaedr .  What  do  you  mean?  I  don’t  understand. 

Soc.  Why,  don’t  you  know  that  when  a  politician 
writes,  he  begins  with  the  names  of  his  approvers? 

Phaedr .  How  is  that? 

Soc.  Why,  he  begins  thus:  “  Be  it  enacted  by  the 
senate,  the  people,  or  both,  as  a  certain  person  who 
was  the  author  proposed;  ”  and  then  he  rehearses  all 
his  titles,  and  proceeds  to  display  his  own  wisdom  to 
his  admirers  with  a  great  flourish  in  what  is  often  a 
long  and  tedious  composition.  Now  what  is  that  sort 
of  thing  but  a  regular  piece  of  authorship? 

Phaedr.  True. 

Soc.  And  if  the  law  is  passed,  then,  like  the  poet, 
he  leaves  the  theatre  in  high  delight;  but  if  the  law 
is  rejected  and  he  is  done  out  of  his  speech-making, 
and  not  thought  good  enough  to  write,  then  he  and 
his  party  are  in  mourning. 

Phaedr.  Very  true. 

Soc.  This  shows  how  far  they  are  from  despising, 
or  rather  how  highly  they  value  the  practice  of  writing. 

Phaedr.  No  doubt. 

Soc.  And  when  the  king  or  orator  has  the  power, 
as  Lycurgus  or  Solon  or  Darius  had,  of  attaining 
an  immortality  of  authorship  in  a  state,  is  he  not 
thought  by  posterity,  when  they  see  his  writings,  and 
does  he  not  think  himself,  while  he  is  yet  alive,  to  be 
like  a  god? 

Phaedr.  That  is  true. 

Soc.  Then  do  you  think  that  any  one  of  this  class 
who  may  be  ill-disposed  to  Lysias  would  ever  make  it 
a  reproach  against  him  that  he  is  an  author? 

Phaedr.  Not  upon  your  view;  for  according  to  you 
he  would  be  reproaching  him  with  his  own  favorite 
pursuit. 


420 


PHAEDRUS 


Soc.  Any  one  may  see  that  there  is  no  disgrace 
in  the  fact  of  writing? 

Phaedr.  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  There  may  however  be  a  disgrace  in  writing, 
not  well,  but  badly. 

Phaedr.  That  is  true. 

Soc.  And  what  is  well  and  what  is  badly  —  need 
we  ask  L}rsias,  or  any  other  poet  or  orator,  who  ever 
wrote  or  will  write  either  a  political  or  any  other  work, 
in  metre  or  out  of  metre,  poet  or  prose  writer,  to  teach 
us  this  ? 

Phaedr.  Need  we?  What  motive  has  a  man  to  live 
if  not  for  the  pleasure  of  discourse?  Surely  he  would 
not  live  for  the  sake  of  bodily  pleasures,  which  almost 
always  have  previous  pain  as  a  condition  of  them,  and 
therefore  are  rightly  called  slavish. 

Soc.  There  is  time  yet.  And  I  can  fancy  that  the 
grasshoppers  who  are  still  chirruping  in  the  sun  over 
our  heads  are  talking  to  one  another  and  looking  at 
us.  What  would  they  say  if  they  saw  that  we  also, 
like  the  many,  are  not  talking  but  slumbering  at  mid¬ 
day,  lulled  by  their  voices,  too  indolent  to  think  ?  They 
would  have  a  right  to  laugh  at  us,  and  might  imagine 
that  we  are  slaves  coming  to  our  place  of  resort,  who 
like  sheep  lie  asleep  at  noon  about  the  fountain.  But 
if  they  see  us  discoursing,  and  like  Odysseus  sailing 
by  their  siren  voices,  they  may  perhaps,  out  of  respect, 
give  us  of  the  gifts  which  they  receive  of  the  gods  and 
give  to  men. 

Phaedr.  What  gifts  do  you  mean?  I  never  heard 
of  any. 

Soc.  A  lover  of  music  like  yourself  ought  surely  to 
have  heard  the  story  of  the  grasshoppers,  who  are  said 
to  have  been  human  beings  in  an  age  before  the  Muses. 
And  when  the  Muses  came  and  song  appeared  they 
were  ravished  with  delight;  and  singing  always,  never 


PHAEDRUS 


421 


thought  of  eating  and  drinking,  until  at  last  they  for¬ 
got  and  died.  And  now  they  live  again  in  the  grass¬ 
hoppers  ;  and  this  is  the  return  which  the  Muses  make 
to  them  —  they  hunger  no  more,  neither  thirst  any 
more,  but  are  always  singing  from  the  moment  that 
they  are  born,  and  never  eating  or  drinking ;  and  when 
they  die  they  go  and  inform  the  Muses  in  heaven 
who  honors  them  on  earth.  They  win  the  love  of 
Terpsichore  for  the  dancers  by  their  report  of  them; 
of  Erato  for  the  lovers,  and  of  the  other  Muses  for 
those  who  do  them  honor,  according  to  the  several 
ways  of  honoring  them ;  —  of  Calliope  the  eldest 
Muse,  and  of  her  who  is  next  to  her  for  the  votaries 
of  philosophy;  for  these  are  the  Muses  who  are  chiefly 
concerned  with  heaven  and  the  ideas,  divine  as  well  as 
human,  and  they  have  the  sweetest  utterance.  For 
many  reasons,  then,  we  ought  always  to  talk  and  not 
to  sleep  at  mid-day. 

Phaedr.  Let  us  talk. 

Soc.  Shall  we  discuss  the  rules  of  writing  and 
speech  as  we  were  proposing? 

Phaedr.  Very  good. 

Soc .  Is  not  the  first  rule  of  good  speaking  that  the 
mind  of  the  speaker  should  know  the  truth  of  what  he 
is  going  to  say? 

Phaedr.  And  yet,  Socrates,  I  have  heard  that  he 
who  would  be  an  orator  has  nothing  to  do  with  true 
justice,  but  only  with  that  which  is  likely  to  be  ap¬ 
proved  by  the  many  who  sit  in  judgment;  nor  with 
the  truly  good  or  honorable,  but  only  with  public 
opinion  about  them,  and  that  from  this  source  and  not 
from  the  truth  come  the  elements  of  persuasion. 

Soc.  Any  words  of  the  wise  ought  to  be  regarded 
and  not  trampled  under  foot,  for  there  is  probably 
something  in  them,  and  perhaps  there  may  be  some¬ 
thing  in  this  which  is  worthy  of  attention. 


422 


PHAEDRUS 


Phaedr.  Very  true. 

Soc.  Let  us  put  the  matter  thus:  —  Suppose  that 
I  persuaded  you  to  buy  a  horse  and  go  to  the  wars. 
Neither  of  us  knew  what  a  horse  was  like,  but  I  knew 
that  you  believed  a  horse  to  be  the  longest-eared  of 
domestic  animals. 

Phaedr.  That  would  be  ridiculous. 

Soc.  There  is  something  more  ridiculous  coming. 
Suppose,  now,  that  I  was  in  earnest  and  went  and 
composed  a  speech  in  honor  of  an  ass,  whom  I  entitled 
a  horse,  beginning:  “  A  noble  animal  and  a  most  use¬ 
ful  possession,  especially  in  war,  and  you  may  get  on 
his  back  and  fight,  and  he  will  carry  baggage  or  any¬ 
thing.” 

Phaedr.  That  would  be  most  ridiculous. 

Soc.  Ridiculous!  .Yes;  but  is  not  even  a  ridiculous 
friend  better  than  a  dangerous  enemy? 

Phaedr.  Certainly. 

Soc.  And  when  the  orator  instead  of  putting  an  ass 
in  the  place  of  a  horse,  puts  good  for  evil,  being  him¬ 
self  as  ignorant  of  their  true  nature  as  the  city  on 
which  he  imposes  is  ignorant;  and  having  studied  the 
notions  of  the  multitude,  persuades  them  to  do  evil 
instead  of  good,  —  what  will  be  the  harvest  which 
rhetoric  will  be  likely  to  gather  after  the  sowing  of 
that  fruit? 

Phaedr.  Anything  but  good. 

Soc.  Perhaps,  however,  rhetoric  has  been  getting 
too  roughly  handled  by  us,  and  she  might  answer: 
What  amazing  nonsense  is  this!  As  if  I  forced  any 
man  to  learn  to  speak  in  ignorance  of  the  truth! 
Whatever  my  advice  may  be  worth,  I  should  have  told 
him  to  arrive  at  the  truth  first,  and  then  come  to  me. 
At  the  same  time  I  boldly  assert  that  mere  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  truth  will  not  give  you  the  art  of  per¬ 
suasion. 


PHAEDRUS 


423 


Phaedr.  There  is  reason  in  the  lady’s  defence  of 
herself. 

Soc.  Yes,  I  admit  that,  if  the  argument  which  she 
has  yet  in  store  bear  witness  that  she  is  an  art  at  all. 
But  I  seem  to  hear  them  arraying  themselves  on  the 
opposite  side,  declaring  that  she  speaks  not  true,  and 
that  rhetoric  is  not  an  art  but  only  a  dilettante  amuse¬ 
ment.  Lo!  a  Spartan  appears,  and  says  that  there 
never  is  nor  ever  will  be  a  real  art  of  speaking  which 
is  unconnected  with  the  truth. 

Phaedr.  And  what  are  these  arguments,  Socrates? 
Bring  them  out  that  we  may  examine  them. 

Soc.  Come  out,  children  of  my  soul,  and  convince 
Phaedrus,  who  is  the  father  of  similar  beauties,  that 
he  will  never  be  able  to  speak  about  anything  unless 
he  be  trained  in  philosophy.  Amd  let  Phaedrus  an¬ 
swer  you. 

Phaedr.  Put  the  question.  \ 

Soc.  Is  not  rhetoric,  taken  generally,  a  universal 
art  of  enchanting  the  mind  by  arguments;  which  is 
practised  not  only  in  courts  and  public  assemblies,  but 
in  private  houses  also,  having  to  do  with  all  matters, 
great  as  well  as  small,  good  and  bad  alike,  and  is  in  all 
equally  right,  and  equally  to  be  esteemed  —  that  is 
what  you  have  heard  ? 

Phaedr.  N ay,  not  exactly  that ;  but  I  should  rather 
say  that  I  have  heard  the  art  confined  to  speaking  and 
writing  in  law-suits,  and  to  speaking  in  public  assem¬ 
blies  —  not  extended  farther. 

Soc.  Then  I  suppose  that  you  have  only  heard  of 
the  rhetoric  of  Nestor  and  Odysseus,  which  they  com¬ 
posed  in  their  leisure  hours  when  at  Troy,  and  never 
of  Palamedes? 

Phaedr.  No  more  than  of  Nestor  and  Odysseus, 
unless  Gorgias  is  your  Nestor,  and  Thrasymachus  and 
Theodorus  your  Odysseus. 


424 


PHAEDRUS 


Soc.  Perhaps  that  is  my  meaning.  But  let  us  leave 
them.  And  do  you  tell  me,  instead,  what  are  plaintiff 
and  defendant  doing  in  a  law-court  —  are  they  not 
contending? 

Phaedr.  Exactly. 

Soc.  About  the  just  and  unjust  —  that  is  the  mat¬ 
ter  in  dispute? 

Phaedr.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  he  who  is  practised  in  the  art  will  make 
the  same  thing  appear  to  the  same  persons  to  be  at  one 
time  just  and  at  another  time  unjust,  if  he  has  a  mind? 

Phaedr .  Exactly. 

Soc.  And  when  he  speaks  in  the  assembly,  he  will 
make  the  same  things  seem  good  to  the  city  at  one 
time,  and  at  another  time  the  reverse  of  good? 

Phaedr .  That  is  true. 

Soc.  Have  we  not  heard  of  the  Eleatic  Palamedes 
(Zeno),  who  has  an  art  of  speaking  which  makes  the 
same  things  appear  to  his  hearers  like  and  unlike,  one 
and  many,  at  rest  and  in  motion  too? 

Phaedr.  Very  true. 

Soc.  The  art  of  disputation,  then,  is  not  confined 
to  the  courts  and  the  assembly,  but  is  one  and  the  same 
in  every  use  of  language ;  this  is  that  art,  if  such  an 
art  there  be,  which  finds  a  likeness  of  everything  to 
which  a  likeness  can  be  found,  and  draws  into  the  light 
of  day  the  likenesses  and  disguises  which  are  used  by 
others? 

Phaedr.  How  do  you  mean? 

Soc.  Let  me  put  the  matter  thus:  When  will  there 
be  more  chance  of  deception  —  when  the  difference  is 
large  or  small? 

Phaedr.  When  the  difference  is  small. 

Soc.  And  you  wTill  be  less  likely  to  be  discovered  in 
passing  by  degrees  into  the  other  extreme  than  when 
you  go  all  at  once  ? 


PHAEDRUS 


425 


Phaedr.  Of  course. 

Soc.  He,  then,  who  would  deceive  others,  and  not 
be  deceived,  must  exactly  know  the  real  likenesses  and 
differences  of  things? 

Phaedr .  Yes,  he  must. 

Soc.  And  if  he  is  ignorant  of  the  true  nature  of 
anything,  how  can  he  ever  distinguish  the  greater  or 
less  degree  of  likeness  to  other  things  of  that  which  he 
does  not  know? 

Phaedr.  He  can  not. 

Soc.  And  when  men  are  deceived,  and  their  notions 
are  at  variance  with  realities,  it  is  clear  that  the  error 
slips  in  through  some  resemblances? 

Phaedr.  Yes,  that  is  the  way. 

Soc.  Then  he  who  would  be  a  master  of  the  art 
must  know  the  real  nature  of  everything;  or  he  will 
never  know  either  how  to  contrive  or  how  to  escape 
the  gradual  departure  from  truth  into  the  opposite 
of  truth  which  is  effected  by  the  help  of  resem¬ 
blances? 

Phaedr.  He  will  not. 

Soc.  He  then,  who  being  ignorant  of  the  truth 
catches  at  appearances,  will  only  attain  an  art  of 
rhetoric  which  is  ridiculous  and  is  not  an  art  at  all  ? 

Phaedr.  That  may  be  expected. 

Soc.  Shall  I  propose  that  we  look  for  examples  of 
good  and  bad  art,  according  to  our  notion  of  them,  in 
the  speech  of  Lysias  which  you  have  in  your  hand,  and 
in  my  own  speech? 

Phaedr.  Nothing  could  be  better;  and  indeed  I 
think  that  our  previous  argument  has  been  too  barren 
of  illustrations. 

Soc.  Yes;  and  the  two  speeches  afford  a  good  illus¬ 
tration  of  the  way  in  which  the  speaker  who  knows  the 
truth  may  playfully  draw  away  the  hearts  of  his 
hearers.  This  piece  of  good  fortune  I  attribute  to  the 


426 


PHAEDRUS 


local  deities ;  and,  perhaps,  the  prophets  of  the  Muses 
who  are  singing  over  our  heads  may  have  imparted 
their  inspiration  to  me.  For  I  do  not  imagine  that  I 
have  any  rhetorical  art  myself. 

Phaedr.  I  will  not  dispute  that;  only  please  to  go 
forward. 

Soc.  Suppose  that  you  read  me  the  first  wTords  of 
Lysias’  speech? 

Phaedr .  “  You  know  my  views  of  our  common  in¬ 
terest,  and  I  do  not  think  that  I  ought  to  fail  in  the 
object  of  my  suit  because  I  am  not  your  lover.  For 
lovers  repent  when - ” 

Soc.  Enough.  Now,  shall  I  point  out  the  rhetorical 
error  of  those  words? 

Phaedr.  Yes. 

Soc.  Every  one  is  aware  that  about  some  things  we 
are  agreed,  whereas  about  other  things  we  differ. 

Phaedr.  I  think  that  I  understand  you;  but  will 
you  explain  yourself  ? 

S oc.  When  any  one  speaks  of  iron  and  silver,  is  not 
the  same  thing  present  in  the  minds  of  all? 

Phaedr.  Certainly. 

Soc.  But  when  any  one  speaks  of  justice  and  good¬ 
ness,  there  is  every  sort  of  disagreement,  and  we  are 
at  odds  with  one  another  and  with  ourselves  ? 

Phaedr.  Precisely. 

Soc.  Then  in  some  things  we  agree,  but  not  in 
others  ? 

Phaedr.  That  is  true. 

Soc.  In  which  are  we  more  likely  to  be  deceived, 
and  in  which  has  rhetoric  the  greater  power? 

Phaedr.  Clearly,  in  the  class  which  admits  of  error. 

Soc.  Then  the  rhetorician  ought  to  make  a  regular 
division,  and  acquire  a  distinct  notion  of  both  classes, 
as  well  of  that  in  which  the  many  err,  as  of  that  in 
which  they  do  not  err? 


PHAEDRUS  427 

Phaedr.  He  who  made  such  a  distinction  would 
have  an  excellent  principle. 

Soc.  Yes;  and  in  the  next  place  he  must  have  a 
keen  eye  for  the  observation  of  particulars  in  speak¬ 
ing,  and  not  make  a  mistake  about  the  class  to  which 
they  are  to  be  referred. 

Phaedr .  Certainly. 

Soc,  Now  to  which  class  does  love  belong  —  to  the 
debatable  or  to  the  undisputed  class? 

Phaedr,  To  the  debatable  class  surely;  for  if  not, 
do  you  think  that  any  one  would  have  allowed  you  to 
say  as  you  did,  that  love  is  an  evil  both  to  the  lover 
and  the  beloved,  and  also  the  greatest  possible  good? 

Soc.  Capital.  But  will  you  tell  me  whether  I  de¬ 
fined  love  at  the  beginning  of  my  speech?  for,  having 
been  in  an  ecstasy,  I  can  not  well  remember. 

Phaedr.  Yes,  indeed;  that  you  did,  and  no  mistake. 

Soc.  Then  I  perceive  that  the  Nymphs  of  Achelous 
and  Pan  the  son  of  Hermes,  who  inspired  me,  were 
far  better  rhetoricians  than  Lysias  the  son  of  Cephalus. 
Alas!  how  inferior  to  them  he  is!  But. perhaps  I  am 
mistaken;  and  Lysias  at  the  commencement  of  his 
lover’s  speech  did  insist  on  our  supposing  love  to  be 
something  or  other  which  he  fancied  him  to  be,  and 
that  in  relation  to  this  something  he  fashioned  and 
framed  the  remainder  of  his  discourse.  Suppose  we 
read  him  over  again. 

Phaedr .  If  you  please;  but  you  will  not  find  what 
you  want. 

Soc.  Read,  that  I  may  have  his  exact  words. 

Phaedr.  “You  know  my  views  of  our  common  in¬ 
terest;  and  I  do  not  think  that  I  ought  to  fail  in  the 
object  of  my  suit  because  I  am  not  your  lover,  for 
lovers  repent  of  the  kindnesses  which  they  have  shown, 
when  their  love  is  over.” 

Soc.  Here  he  appears  to  have  done  just  the  reverse 


428 


PHAEDRUS 


of  what  he  ought;  for  he  has  begun  at  the  end,  and  is 
swimming  on  his  back  through  the  flood  of  words  to 
the  place  of  starting.  His  address  to  the  fair  youth 
commences  with  reference  to  the  conclusion  of  his  love. 
Am  I  not  right,  sweet  Phaedrus? 

Phaedr.  Yes,  indeed,  Socrates;  he  does  begin  at  the 
^end. 

Soc.  Then  as  to  the  other  topics  —  are  they  not  a 
mass  of  confusion?  Is  there  any  principle  in  them? 
Why  should  the  next  topic  or  any  other  topic  follow 
in  that  order?  I  can  not  help  fancying  in  my  igno¬ 
rance  that  he  wrote  freely  off  just  what  came  into  his 
head,  but  I  dare  say  that  you  would  recognize  a  rhe¬ 
torical  necessity  in  the  succession  of  the  several  parts 
of  the  composition? 

Phaedr .  You  have  too  good  an  opinion  of  me  if  you 
think  that  I  have  any  such  insight  into  his  principles 
of  composition. 

Soc.  At  any  rate,  you  will  allow  that  every  dis¬ 
course  ought  to  be  a  living  creature,  having  its  own 
body  and  head  and  feet;  there  ought  to  be  a  middle, 
beginning,  and  end,  which  are  in  a  manner  agreeable 
to  one  another  and  to  the  whole? 

Phaedr.  Certainly. 

Soc.  Can  this  be  said  of  the  discourse  of  Lysias? 
See  whether  you  can  find  any  more  connections  in  his 
words  than  in  the  epitaph,  which  is  said  by  some  to 
have  been  inscribed  on  the  grave  of  Midas  the 
Phrygian. 

Phaedr.  What  is  there  remarkable  in  the  epitaph? 

Soc .  The  epitaph  is  as  follows: 

“  I  am  a  maiden  of  brass ; 

I  lie  on  the  tomb  of  Midas, 

While  waters  flow  and  tall  trees  grow, 

Here  am  I, 


PHAEDRUS 


429 


On  Midas’  tearful  tomb  I  lie; 

I  am  to  tell  the  passers  by 

That  Midas  sleeps  in  earth  below.” 


Now  in  this  rhyme  whether  a  line  comes  first  or  comes 
last,  that,  as  you  will  perceive,  makes  no  difference.  N 

Phaedr.  You  are  making  fun  of  that  oration  of 
ours. 

Soc.  Well,  I  will  say  no  more  about  your  friend 
lest  I  should  give  offence  to  you ;  although  I  think  that 
he  might  furnish  many  other  examples  of  what  a  man 
ought  to  avoid.  But  I  will  proceed  to  the  other  speech, 
which,  as  I  think,  is  also  suggestive  to  students  of 
rhetoric. 

Phaedr .  In  what  way? 

Soc.  The  two  speeches,  as  you  may  remember,  were 
of  an  opposite  character,  the  one  argued  that  the  lover 
and  the  other  that  the  non-lover  ought  to  be  accepted. 

Phaedr.  And  right  manfully. 

Soc.  You  should  rather  say  “madly;”  and  that 
was  the  argument  of  them,  for,  as  I  said,  “  love  is  a 
madness.” 

Phaedr.  Yes. 

Soc.  And  there  were  two  kinds  of  madness;  one 
produced  by  human  infirmity,  the  other  by  a  divine 
release  from  the  ordinary  ways  of  men. 

Phaedr.  True. 

Soc.  The  divine  madness  was  subdivided  into  four 
kinds,  prophetic,  initiatory,  poetic,  erotic,  having  four 
gods  presiding  over  them ;  the  first  was  the  inspiration 
of  Apollo,  the  second  that  of  Dionysus,  the  third  that 
of  the  Muses,  the  fourth  that  of  Aphrodite  and  Eros. 
In  the  description  of  the  last  kind  of  madness,  which 
was  also  the  best,  being  a  sort  of  figure  of  love,  we 
mingled  a  tolerably  credible  and  possibly  true,  though 
partly  erring  myth,  which  was  also  a  hymn  in  honor 


430 


PHAEDRUS 


of  Eros,  who  is  your  lord  and  also  mine,  Phaedrus, 
and  the  guardian  of  fair  children,  and  to  him  we  sung 
the  hymn  in  measured  and  solemn  form. 

Phaedr.  I  know  that  I  had  great  pleasure  in  listen¬ 
ing  to  the  tale. 

Soc.  Let  us  take  this  instance  and  examine  how  the 
transition  was  made  from  blame  to  praise. 

Phaedr .  What  do  you  mean. 

Soc.  I  mean  to  say  that  the  composition  was  mostly 
playful.  Yet  in  these  chance  fancies  of  the  hour  were 
involved  two  principles  which  would  be  charming  if 
they  could  be  fixed  by  art. 

Phaedr .  What  are  they? 

Soc.  First,  the  comprehension  of  scattered  par¬ 
ticulars  in  one  idea;  —  the  speaker  defines  his  several 
notions  in  order  that  he  may  make  his  meaning  clear, 
as  in  our  definition  of  love,  which  whether  true  or  false 
certainly  gave  clearness  and  consistency  to  the  dis¬ 
course. 

Phaedr.  What  is  the  other  principle,  Socrates? 

Soc.  Secondly,  there  is  the  faculty  of  division  ac- 
.  cording  to  the  natural  ideas  or  members,  not  breaking 
any  part  as  a  bad  carver  might.  But,  as  the  body  may 
be  divided  into  a  left  side  and  into  a  right  side,  having 
parts  right  and  left,  so  in  the  two  discourses  there  was 
assumed,  first  of  all,  the  general  idea  of  unreason,  and 
then  one  of  the  two  proceeded  to  divide  the  parts  of 
the  left  side  and  did  not  desist  until  he  found  in  them 
an  evil  or  left-handed  love  which  the  speaker  justly  re¬ 
viled  ;  and  the  other  leading  us  to  the  right  portion  in 
which  madness  lay,  found  another  love,  having  the 
same  name,  but  yet  divine,  wThich  he  held  up  before 
us  and  applauded  as  the  author  of  the  greatest 
benefits. 

Phaedr .  That  is  most  true. 

Soc.  I  am  a  great  lover  of  these  processes  of  division 


PHAEDRUS 


431 


and  generalization ;  they  help  me  to  speak  and  think. 
And  if  I  find  any  man  who  is  able  to  see  unity  and 
plurality  in  nature,  him  I  follow,  and  walk  in  his  step 
as  if  he  were  a  god.  And  those  who  have  this  art,  I 
have  hitherto  been  in  the  habit  of  calling  dialecticians ; 
but  God  knows  whether  the  name  is  right  or  not. 
And  I  should  like  to  know  what  name  you  would  give 
to  your  or  Lysias’  disciples,  and  whether  this  may  not 
be  "that  famous  art  of  rhetoric  which  Thrasymachus 
and  others  practise?  Skilful  speakers  they  are,  and 
impart  their  skill  to  any  one  who  will  consent  to  wor¬ 
ship  them  as  kings  and  to  bring  them  gifts. 

Phaedr .  Yes,  they  are  royal  men;  but  their  art  is 
not  the  same  with  the  art  of  those  whom  you  call,  and 
rightly,  in  my  opinion,  dialecticians.  Still  we  are  in 
the  dark  about  rhetoric. 

Soc.  What  do  you  mean?  The  remains  of  the  art, 
when  all  this  has  been  taken  away,  must  be  of  rare 
value ;  and  are  not  at  all  to  be  despised  by  you  and  me. 
But  what  are  the  remains?  —  tell  me  that. 

Phaedr.  There  is  a  great  deal  surely  to  be  found  in 
books  of  rhetoric? 

Soc.  Yes;  thank  you  for  reminding  me  of  that, 
there  is  the  prooemium,  if  I  remember  rightly  —  that 
is  what  you  mean  —  the  niceties  of  the  art? 

Phaedr.  Yes. 

Soc.  There  follows  the  statement  of  facts,  and  upon 
that  witnesses;  thirdly,  proofs;  fourthly,  probabilities 
are  to  come ;  the  great  Byzantian  artist  also  speaks,  if 
I  am  not  mistaken,  of  confirmation  and  superconfir¬ 
mation. 

Phaedr .  You  mean  the  excellent  Theodorus. 

Soc .  Yes;  and  he  tells  how  refutation  or  further 
refutation  is  to  be  managed,  whether  in  accusation  or 
defence.  I  need  hardly  mention  the  Parian  Evenus, 
who  first  invented  indirect  allusions  and  incidental 


432 


PHAEDRUS 


praises,  and  also  censures,  of  which  this  wise  man  made 
a  memoria  technica  in  verse.  But  shall 

“  I  to  dumb  forgetfulness  consign  ” 

Tisias  and  Gorgias,  who  are  not  ignorant  that  prob¬ 
ability  is  superior  to  truth,  and  who  by  force  of  argu¬ 
ment  make  the  little  appear  great  and  the  great  little, 
and  the  new  old  and  the  old  new,  and  have  discovered 
universal  forms,  either  short  or  going  on  to  infinity. 
I  remember  Prodicus  laughing  when  I  told  him  of 
this;  he  said  that  he  had  himself  discovered  the  true 
rule  of  art,  which  was  to  be  neither  long  nor  short,  but 
of  a  convenient  length. 

Phaedr .  Well  done,  Prodicus. 

Soc.  Then  there  is  Plippias  of  Elis,  who  probably 

agrees  with  him. 

Phaedr.  Yes. 

Soc.-  And  there  is  also  Polus,  who  has  schools  of 
diplasiology,  and  gnomology,  and  eikonology,  and 
who  teaches  in  them  the  words  of  which  Licymnius 
made  him  a  present;  they  were  to  give  a  polish. 

Phaedr.  Plad  not  Protagoras  something  of  the 
same  sort? 

Soc.  Yes,  rules  of  correctness  and  many  other  fine 
precepts;  for  the  “  sorrows  of  a  poor  old  man,”  or  any 
other  pathetic  case,  no  one  is  better  than  the  Chalce- 
donian  giant ;  he  can  put  a  whole  company  of  people 
into  a  passion  and  out  of  one  again  by  his  mighty 
magic,  and  is  first-rate  at  inventing  or  disposing  of 
any3  sort  of  calumny  on  any  grounds  or  none.  All  of 
them  agree  in  asserting  that  a  speech  should  end  in  a 
recapitulation,  though  they  do  not  all  agree  in  the  use 
of  this  word. 

Phaedr.  You  mean  that  there  should  be  a  summing 
up  of  the  arguments  in  order  to  remind  the  hearers  of 

them. 


PHAEDRUS 


433 


Soc.  I  have  now  said  all  that  I  have  to  say  of  the 
art  of  rhetoric :  have  you  anything  to  add  ? 

Jp)haedr.  Not  much,  nor  very  important. 

oc.  Leave  the  unimportant  and  let  us  bring  the 
ly  important  question  into  the  light  of  day,  which 
is :  What  power  this  art  of  rhetoric  has,  and  when  ? 
Phaedr.  A  very  great  power  in  public  meetings. 
Soc.  Yes,  that  is  true.  But  I  should  like  to  know 
whether  you  have  the  same  feeling  as  I  have  about  the 
rhetoricians?  To  me  there  seems  to  be  a  great  many 
holes  in  their  web. 

Phaedr.  Give  an  example. 

Soc.  I  will.  Suppose  a  person  to  come  to  your 
friend  Eryximachus,  or  to  his  father  Acumenus,  and 
say  to  him:  “  I  know  how  to  apply  drugs  which  shall 
have  either  a  heating  or  a  cooling  effect,  and  I  can 
give  a  vomit  and  also  a  purge,  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing;  and  knowing  all  this,  as  I  do,  I  claim  to  be  a 
physician  and  a  teacher  of  physic  ”  —  what  do  you 
suppose  that  they  would  say? 

Phaedr .  They  would  be  sure  to  ask  him  whether  he 
knew  “  to  whom  ”  he  would  give  them,  and  “  when,” 
and  “  how  much.” 

Soc.  And  suppose  that  he  were  to  reply:  “  No;  I 
know  nothing  of  that;  I  expect  those  whom  I  have 
taught  all  this  to  do  that  of  themselves.” 

Phaedr.  They  would  reply  that  he  is  a  madman  or 
a  pedant  who  fancies  that  he  is  a  physician,  because 
he  has  read  something  in  a  book,  or  has  stumbled  on 
a  few  drugs,  although  he  has  no  real  understanding 
of  the  art  of  medicine. 

Soc.  And  suppose  a  person  were  to  come  to 
Sophocles  or  Euripides  and  say  that  he  knows  how  to 
make  a  long  speech  about  a  small  matter,  and  a  short 
speech  about  a  great  matter,  and  also  a  sorrowful 
speech,  or  a  terrible,  or  threatening  speech,  or  any 


434 


PHAEDRUS 


other  kind  of  speech,  and  in  teaching  this  fancies  that 
he  is  teaching  the  art  of  tragedy? 

Phaedr.  They  too  would  surely  laugh  at  him  if  he 
fancies  that  tragedy  is  anything  but  the  arranginBof 
these  elements  in  a  manner  suitable  to  one  another  Bid 
to  the  whole. 

Soc.  But  I  do  not  suppose  that  they  would  be  rude 
to  him  or  revile  him.  Would  they  not  treat  him  as  a 
musician  would  treat  a  man  who  thinks  that  he  is  a  har¬ 
monist  because  he  knows  how  to  pitch  the  highest  and 
lowest  note ;  happening  to  meet  such  an  one  he  would 
not  say  to  him  savagely,  “  Fool,  you  are  mad!  ”  Oh, 
no ;  he  would  rather  say  to  him  in  a  gentle  and  musical 
tone  of  voice:  “  My  good  friend,  he  who  would  be  a 
harmonist  must  certainly  know  this,  and  yet  he  may 
understand  nothing  of  harmony  if  he  has  not  got 
beyond  your  stage  of  knowledge,  for  you  only  know 
the  preliminaries  of  harmony  and  not  harmonies.” 

Phaedr.  Very  true. 

Soc.  And  would  not  Sophocles  say  to  the  display 
of  the  would-be  tragedian,  that  this  was  not  tragedy 
but  the  preliminaries  of  tragedy,  and  would  not 
Acumenus  say  to  the  would-be  doctor  that  this  was 
not  medicine  but  the  preliminaries  of  medicine? 

Phaedr.  Very  true. 

Soc.  And  if  Adrastus  the  mellifluous  or  Pericles 
heard  of  these  wonderful  arts,  brachylogies  and 
eikonologies  and  all  the  hard  names  which  we  have 
been  endeavoring  to  draw  into  the  light  of  day,  what 
would  they  say?  Instead  of  losing  temper  and  apply¬ 
ing  uncomplimentary  epithets,  as  you  and  I  have  been 
doing  to  the  authors  of  such  an  imaginary  art,  their 
superior  wisdom  would  rather  censure  us,  as  well  as 
them.  Have  a  little  patience,  Phaedrus  and  Socrates, 
they  would  say,  and  don’t  be  angry  with  those  who 
from  some  want  of  dialectical  skill  are  unable  to  define 


PHAEDRUS 


435 


the  nature  of  rhetoric,  and  consequently  suppose  that 
they  have  found  the  art  in  the  preliminary  conditions 
of  the  art,  and  when  they  have  taught  these  to  others, 
fancy  that  they  have  been  teaching  the  whole  art  of 
rhetoric;  but  as  to  persuasion  in  detail  and  unity  of 
composition,  that  they  regard  as  an  easy  thing  with 
which  their  disciples  may  supply  themselves. 

Phaedr .  I  quite  admit,  Socrates,  that  the  art  of 
rhetoric  which  these  men  teach  and  of  which  they 
write  is  such  as  you  describe  —  in  that  I  agree  with 
you.  But  I  still  want  to  know  where  and  how  the  true 
art  of  rhetoric  and  persuasion  is  to  be  acquired. 

Soc .  The  perfection  of  oratory  is,  or  rather  must 
be,  like  the  perfection  of  all  things,  partly  given  by 
nature ;  but  this  is  assisted  by  art,  and  if  you  have  the 
natural  power  you  will  be  famous  as  a  rhetorician,  if 
you  only  add  knowledge  and  practice,  and  in  either 
you  may  fall  short.  But  the  art,  as  far  as  there  is 
an  art,  of  rhetoric  does  not  lie  in  the  direction  of 
Tisias  or  Thrasymachus. 

Phaedr.  But  in  what  direction  then? 

Soc .  I  should  conceive  that  Pericles  was  the  most 
accomplished  of  rhetoricians. 

Phaedr.  What  of  that? 

Soc.  All  the  higher  arts  require  much  discussion 
and  lofty  contemplation  of  nature;  this  is  the  source 
of  sublimity  and  perfect  comprehensive  power.  And 
this,  as  I  conceive,  was  the  quality  which,  in  addition 
to  his  natural  gifts,  Pericles  acquired  from  his  hap¬ 
pening  to  know  Anaxagoras.  He  was  imbued  with 
the  higher  philosophy,  and  attained  the  knowledge  of 
mind  and  matter,  which  was  the  favorite  theme  of 
Anaxagoras,  and  hence  he  drew  what  was  applicable 
to  his  art.  \ 

Phaedr.  Explain. 

Soc.  Rhetoric  is  like  medicine. 


436 


PHAEDRUS 


Phaedr.  How  is  that? 

Soc.  Why,  because  medicine  has  to  define  the 
nature  of  the  body  and  rhetoric  of  the  soul  —  if  you 
would  proceed,  not  empirically  but  scientifically,  in 
the  one  case  to  impart  health  and  strength  by  giving 
medicine  and  food,  in  the  other  to  implant  the  con¬ 
viction  which  you  require  by  the  right  use  of  words 
and  principles. 

Phaedr.  You  are  probably  right  in  that. 

Soc.  And  do  you  think  that  you  can  know  the 
nature  of  the  soul  intelligently  without  knowing  the 
nature  of  the  whole? 

Phaedr.  Hippocrates  the  Asclepiad  says  that  this 
is  the  only  method  of  procedure  by  which  the  nature 
even  of  the  body  can  be  understood. 

Soc.  Yes,  friend,  and  he  says  truly.  Still,  we  ought 
not  to  he  content  with  the  name  of  Hippocrates,  but 
to  examine  and  see  whether  he  has  reason  on  his 
side. 

Phaedr.  True. 

Soc.  Then  consider  what  this  is  which  Hippocrates 
says,  and  which  right  reason  says  about  this  or  any 
other  nature.  Ought  we  not  to  consider  first  whether 
that  which  we  wish  either  to  learn  or  to  teach  is  simple 
or  multiform,  and  if  simple,  then  to  inquire  what 
power  this  has  of  acting  or  being  acted  upon  by  other, 
and  if  multiform,  then  to  number  the  forms;  and  see 
first  in  the  case  of  one  of  them,  and  then  in  the  case  of 
all  of  them,  the  several  powers  which  they  by  nature 
have  of  doing  or  suffering. 

Phaedr.  That  will  be  the  way. 

Soc.  The  method  which  has  not  this  analysis  is  like 
the  groping  of  a  blind  man.  Yet,  surely,  he  who  is 
an  artist  ought  not  to  admit  of  a  comparison  with  the 
blind,  or  deaf;  but  he  who  imparts  rules  of  speech  in  an 
artist-like  or  scientific  manner  will  particularly  set 


PHAEDRUS 


437 


forth  the  nature  of  that  to  which  he  gives  his  rules, 
which  I  suppose  is  the  soul. 

Phaedr.  Certainly. 

«/  # 

Soc.  His  whole  effort  is  directed  towards  this,  tor 
in  this  he  seeks  to  produce  conviction. 

Phaedr .  Yes. 

Soc.  Then  clearly,  Thrasymachus  or  any  one  else 
who  elaborates  a  system  of  rhetoric  will  give  an  exact 
description  of  the  nature  of  the  soul;  which  he  will 
make  to  appear  either  as  single  and  same,  or,  like 
the  body,  multiform.  That  is  what  we  should  call 
showing  the  nature  of  the  soul. 

Phaedr.  Exactly. 

Soc.  He  will  next  proceed  to  speak  of  the  instru¬ 
ments  by  which  the  soul  acts  or  is  affected  in  any 
way. 

Phaedr.  True. 

Soc.  Thirdly,  having  arranged  men  and  speeches, 
and  their  modes  and  affections  in  different  classes, 
and  fitted  them  into  one  another,  he  will  point  out  the 
connection  between  them  —  he  will  show  why  one  is 
naturally  persuaded  by  a  particular  form  of  argument, 
and  another  not. 

Phaedr.  That  will  certainly  be  a  very  good  way. 

Soc.  Yes,  that  is  the  true  and  only  way  in  which 
any  subject  can  be  set  forth  or  treated  by  rules  of  art, 
whether  in  speaking  or  writing.  But  the  writers  of 
the  present  day,  at  whose  feet  you  have  sat,  improp¬ 
erly  conceal  all  this  about  the  soul  which  they  know 
quite  well.  Nor,  until  they  adopt  our  method  of  read¬ 
ing  and  writing,  can  we  admit  that  they  write  by  rules 
of  art. 

Phaedr.  What  is  our  method? 

Soc.  I  can  not  give  you  the  exact  details;  but  I 
should  like  to  tell  you  generally,  as  far  as  I  can,  how  a 
man  ought  to  proceed  according  to  rules  of  art. 


m 


PHAEDRUS 


Phaedr.  Let  me  hear. 

S oc.  Oratory  is  the  art  of  enchanting  the  soul,  and 
therefore  he  who  would  be  an  orator  has  to  learn  the 
differences  of  human  souls  —  they  are  so  many  and 
of  such  a  nature,  and  from  them  come  the  differences 
between  man  and  man  —  he  will  then  proceed  to 
divide  speeches  into  their  different  classes.  5uch~and 
such  persons,  he  will  say,  are  affected  by  this  or  that 
kind  of  speech  in  this  or  that  way,  and  he  will  tell  you 
why;  he  must  have  a  theoretical  notion  of  them  first, 
'  and  then  he  must  see  them  in  action,  and  be  able  to 
follow  them  with  all  his  senses  about  him,  or  he  will 
never  get  beyond  the  precepts  of  his  masters.  But 
when  he  is  able  to  say  what  persons  are  persuaded  by 
what  arguments,  and  recognize  the  individual  about 
whom  he  used  to  theorize  as  actually  present  to  him, 
and  say  to  himself,  44  This  is  he  and  this  is  the  sort  of 
man  who  ought  to  have  that  argument  applied  to  him 
in  order  to  convince  him  of  this;  ”  —  when  he  has  at¬ 
tained  the  knowledge  of  all  this,  and  knows  also  whpn 
he  should  speak  and  when  he  should  abstain  from 
speaking,  and  when  he  should  make  use  of  pithy  say¬ 
ings,  pafhetic  appeals,  aggravated  effects,  and  all  the 
other  figures  of  speech ;  —  when,  I  say,  he  knows  the 
times  and  seasons  of  all  these  things,  then,  and  not  till 
then,  he  is  perfect  and  a  consummate  master  of  his  art ; 
but  if  he  fail  in  any  of  these  points,  whether  in  speak¬ 
ing  or  teaching  or  writing  them,  and  says  that  he 
speaks  by  rules  of  art,  he  who  denies  this  has  the  better 
of  him.  Well,  the  teacher  will  say,  is  this  Phaedrus 
and  Socrates,  your  account  of  the  art  of  rhetoric,  or 
am  I  to  look  for  another? 

Phaedr.  He  must  take  this,  Socrates,  for  there  is 
no  possibility  of  another,  and  yet  the  creation  of  such 
an  art  is  not  easy. 

Soc.  That  is  true;  and  therefore  let  us  turn  the 


PHAEDRUS 


439 


matter  up  and  down,  and  see  whether  there  may  not 
be  a  shorter  and  easier  road;  there  is  no  use  in  taking 
the  longer  and  more  difficult  way  when  there  is  a 
shorter  and  easier  one.  And  I  wish  that  you  would 
try  and  remember  whether  there  is  anything  which 
you  have  heard  from  Lysias  or  any  one  else  which 
might  be  of  service  to  us. 

Phaedr.  If  trying  would  avail,  then  I  might;  but 
I  fear  that  I  can  not  remember  anything  at  the  mo¬ 
ment. 

Soc.  Suppose  I  tell  you  something  which  somebody 
who  knows  told  me. 

Phaedr.  Certainly. 

Soc.  May  not  the  wolf,  as  the  proverb  says,  claim  a 
hearing  ? 

Phaedr.  Do  you  say  what  can  be  said  for  him. 

Soc.  Well,  they  say  that  there  is  no  use  in  putting 
a  solemn  face  on  a  matter,  or  in  going  round  and 
round,  until  you  arrive  at  the  beginning  of  all  things; 
for  that  when  the  question  is  of  justice  and  good,  as  I 
said  at  first*  or  a  question  in  which  men  are  concerned 
\yho  are  just  and  good,  either  by  nature  or  habit,  he 
who  would  be  a  skilful  rhetorician  has  no  need  of  truth 
—  for  that  in  courts  of  law  men  literally  care  nothing 
about  truth,  but  only  about  conviction:  and  this  is 
based  on  probability,  to  which  he  who  would  be  a 
skilful  orator  should  therefore  give  his  whole  attention. 
And  they  say  also  that  there  are  cases  in  which  the 
actual  facts  ought  to  be  withheld,  and  only  the  prob¬ 
abilities  should  be  told  either  in  accusation  or  defence, 
and  that  always  in  speaking  the  orator  should  run 
after  probability,  and  say  good-bye  to  the  truth.  And 
the  observance  of  this  principle  throughout  a  speech 
furnishes  the  whole  art. 

Phaedr.  That  is  what  the  professors  of  rhetoric  do 
actually  say,  Socrates,  for  I  remember  that  although 


440 


PHAEDRUS 


we  have  touched  upon  this  matter  but  slightly,  the 
point  is  all-important  with  them. 

Soc.  I  dare  say  that  you  are  familiar  with  Tisias. 
Does  he  not  define  probability  to  be  that  which  the 
many  think  ?  ‘ 

Phaedr.  Certainly,  he  does. 

Soc .  I  believe  that  he  has  a  clever  and  ingenious 
case  of  this  sort :  —  He  supposes  a  feeble  and  valiant 
man  to  have  assaulted  a  strong  and  cowardly  one,  and 
to  have  robbed  him  of  his  coat  or  of  something  or 
other;  he  is  brought  into  court,  and  then  Tisias  says 
that  both  parties  should  tell  lies:  the  coward  should 
say  that  he  was  assaulted  by  more  men  than  one ;  the 
other  should  prove  that  they  were  alone,  and  should 
use  this  argument:  “  How  could  a  man  like  me  have 
assaulted  a  man  like  him?  ”  The  other  will  not  like 
to  confess  his  own  cowardice,  and  will  therefore  in¬ 
vent  some  other  lie  which  his  adversary  will  thus  gain 
an  opportunity  of  refuting.  These  and  others  like 
them  are  the  precepts  of  the  doctors  of  the  art.  Am 
I  not  right,  Phaedrus? 

Phaedr.  Certainly. 

Soc.  I  can  not  help  feeling  that  this  is  a  wonder¬ 
fully  mysterious  art  which  Tisias  has  discovered,  or 
whoever  the  gentleman  was,  or  whatever  his  name  or 
country  may  have  been  who  was  the  discoverer.  Shall 
we  say  a  word  to  him  or  not  ? 

Phaedr .  What  shall  we  say  to  him? 

Soc.  Let  us  tell  him  that,  before  he  appeared,  you 
and  I  were  saying  that  probability  was  engendered 
in  the  minds  of  the  many  by  the  likeness  of  the  truth, 
and  were  setting  forth  that  he  who  knew  the^truth 
would  always  know  how  best  to  discover  the  resem5 
blances  of  the  truth.  If  he  has  anything  further  to 
say  about  the  art  of  speaking  we  should  like  to  hear 
him;  but  if  not,  we  are  satisfied  with  our  own  view, 


PHAEDRUS 


441 


that  unless  a  man  estimates  the  various  characters  of 
his  hearers  and  is  able  to  divide  existences  into  classes 
and  to  sum  them  up  in  single  ideas,  he  will  never  be 
a  skilful  rhetorician  even  within  the  limits  of  human 
power.  And  this  art  he  will  not  attain  without  a  great 
deal  of  trouble,  which  a  good  man  ought  to  undergo, 
not  for  the  sake  of  speaking  and  acting  before  men, 
but  in  order  that  he  may  be  able  to  say  what  is  accept¬ 
able  to  God  and  in  all  things  to  act  acceptably  to  Him 
as  far  as  in  him  lies;  for  there  is  a  saying  of  wiser 
men  than  ourselves,  that  a  man  of  sense  should  not 
try  to  please  his  fellow-servants  (at  least  this  should 
not  be  his  principal  object)  but  his  good  and  noble 
masters,  so  that,  if  the  way  is  long  and  circuitous, 
marvel  not  at  this;  for,  where  the  end  is  great,  there 
the  way  may  be  permitted  to  be  long,  but  not  for 
lesser  ends  such  as  yours.  Truly,  the  argument  may 
say,  Tisias,  that  if  you  do  not  mind  going  so  far, 
rhetoric  has  a  fair  beginning  in  this. 

Phaedr.  I  think,  Socrates,  that  this  is  admirable, 
if  only  practicable. 

Soc.  But  even  to  fail  in  an  honorable  object  is  hon¬ 
orable. 

Phaedr .  True. 

Soc.  I  think  that  enough  has  been  said  of  a  true 
and  false  art  of  speaking. 

Phaedr.  Certainly. 

Soc.  But  there  is  something  yet  to  be  said  of  pro¬ 
priety  and  impropriety  of  writing. 

Phaedr.  Yes. 

Soc.  Ho  you  know  how  you  can  speak  or  act  about 
rhetoric  in  a  manner  which  will  be  acceptable  to 
God? 

Phaedr.  No,  indeed.  Do  you? 

Soc.  I  have  heard  a  tradition  of  antiquity,  whether 
true  or  not  antiquity  only  knows.  If  we  had  the  truth 


442 


PHAEDRUS 


ourselves,  do  you  think  that  we  should  care  much 
about  the  opinions  of  men? 

Phaedr .  That  is  a  question  which  needs  no  answer; 
but  I  wish  that  you  would  tell  me  what  you  say  that 
you  have  heard. 

Soc.  At  the  Egyptian  city  of  Naucratis,  there  was 
a  famous  old  god,  whose  name  was  Theuth;  the  bird 
which  is  called  the  Ibis  was  sacred  to  him,  and  he  was 
the  inventor  of  many  arts,  such  as  arithmetic  and  cal¬ 
culation  and  geometry  and  astronomy  and  draughts 
and  dice,  but  his  great  discovery  was  the  use  of  letters. 
Now  in  those  days  Thamus  was  the  king  of  the  whole 
of  Upper  Egypt,  which  is  the  district  surrounding 
that  great  city  which  is  called  by  the  Hellenes  Egyp¬ 
tian  Thebes,  and  they  call  the  god  himself  Ammon. 
To  him  came  Theuth  and  showed  his  inventions,  de¬ 
siring  that  the  other  Egyptians  might  be  allowed  to 
have  the  benefit  of  them;  he  went  through  them,  and 
Thamus  inquired  about  their  several  uses,  and  praised 
some  of  them  and  censured  others,  as  he  approved  or 
disapproved  of  them.  There  would  be  no  use  in  re¬ 
peating  all  that  Thamus  said  to  Theuth  in  praise  or 

blame  of  the  various  arts.  But  when  thev  came  to 

•/ 

letters,  This,  said  Theuth,  will  make  the  Egyptians 
wiser  and  give  them  better  memories;  for  this  is  the 
ciire  of  forgetfulness  and  of  folly.  Thamus  replied: 
O  most  ingenious  Theuth,  he  who  has  the  gift  of  in¬ 
vention  is  not  always  the  best  judge  of  the  utility  or 
inutility  of  his  own  inventions  to  the  users  of  them. 
And  in  this  instance  a  paternal  love  of  your  own  child 
has  led  you  to  sav  what  is  not  the  fact;  for  this  inven- 
tion  of  yours  will  create  forgetfulness  in  the  learners’ 
souls,  because  they  will  not  use  their  memories;  they 
will  trust  to  the  external  written  characters  and  not 
remember  of  themselves.  You  have  found  a  specific, 
not  for  memory  but  for  reminiscence,  and  you  give 


PHAEDRUS 


443 


your  disciples  only  the  pretence  of  wisdom;  they  will 
be  hearers  of  many  things  and  will  have  learned  noth¬ 
ing  ;  they  will  appear  to  be  omniscient  and  will  gen¬ 
erally  know  nothing;  they  will  be  tiresome,  having 
the  reputation  of  knowledge  without  the  reality. 

Phaedr.  Yes,  Socrates,  you  can  easily  invent  tales 
of  Egypt,  or  of  any  other  country  that  you  like. 

Soc.  There  was  a  tradition  in  the  temple  of  Do- 
dona  that  oaks  first  gave  prophetic  utterances.  The 
men  of  that  day,  unlike  in  their  simplicity  to  young 
philosophy,  deemed  that  if  they  heard  the  truth  even 
from  “oak  or  rock,”  that  was  enough  for  them; 
whereas,  you  seem  to  think  not  of  the  truth  but  of 
the  speaker,  and  of  the  country  from  which  the  truth 
comes. 

Phaedr.  I  acknowledge  the  justice  of  your  rebuke; 
and  I  think  that  the  Theban  is  right  in  his  view  about 
letters. 

Soc .  He  would  be  a  simple  person,  and  quite  with¬ 
out  understanding  of  the  oracles  Thamus  and  Am¬ 
mon,  who  should  leave  in  wrriting  or  receive  in  writing 
any  art  under  the  idea  that  the  written  w^ord  would 
be  intelligible  or  certain ;  or  who  deemed  that  writing 
was  at  all  better  than  knowledge  and  recollection  of 
.{heTsame  matters. 

Phaedr.  That  is  most  true. 

Soc.  I  can  not  help  feeling,  Phaedrus,  that  waiting 
is  unfortunately  like  painting;  for  the  creations  of 
the  painter  have  the  attitude  of  life,  and  yet  if  you 
ask  them  a  question  thev  preserve  a  solemn  silence. 
And  the  same  may  he  said  of  speeches.  You  would 
imagine  that  they  had  intelligence,  but  if  you  want 
to  know  anything  and  put  a  question  to  one  of  them, 
the  speaker  ahvays  gives  one  unvarying  answer.  And 
when  they  have  been  once  written  down  they  are 
tossed  about  anywhere  among  those  who  do  and 


444  PHAEDRUS 


among  those  who  do  not  understand  them.  And  they 
have  no  reticences  or  proprieties  towards  different 
classes  of  persons;  and,  if  they  are  unjustly  assailed 
or  abused,  their  parent  is  needed  to  protect  his  off¬ 
spring,  for  they  can  not  protect  or  defend  themselves. 

Phaedr .  That  again  is  most  true. 

Soc.  May  we  not  imagine  another  kind  of  writing 
or  speaking  far  better  than  this  is,  and  having  far 
greater  power  —  which  is  one  of  the  same  family,  but 
lawfully  begotten?  Let  us  see  what  his  origin  is. 

Phaedr.  Who  is  he,  and  what  do  you  mean  about 
his  origin? 

Soc.  I  am  speaking  of  an  intelligent  writing  which 
is  graven  in  the  soul  of  him  who  has  learned,  and  can 
defend  itself,  and  knows  when  to  speak  and  when  to 


be  silent. 

Phaedr.  You  mean  the  word  of  knowledge  which 
has  a  living  soul,  and  of  which  the  written  word  is 
properly  no  more  than  an  image  ? 

Soc.  Yes,  of  course  that  is  what  I  mean.  And  I 
wish  that  you  would  let  me  ask  you  a  question:  Would 
a  husbandman,  who  is  a  man  of  sense,  take  the  seeds, 
which  he  values  and  which  he  wishes  to  be  fruitful, 
and  in  sober  earnest  plant  them  during  the  heat  of 
summer,  in  some  garden  of  Adonis,  that  he  may  re¬ 
joice  when  he  sees  them  in  eight  days  appearing  in 
beauty  (at  least  he  does  that,  if  at  all,  only  as  the  show 
of  a  festival)  ;  but  those  about  which  he  is  in  earnest 
he  sows  in  fitting  soil,  and  practises  husbandry,  and 
is  satisfied  if  in  eight  months  they  arrive  at;  perfection? 

Phaedr.  Yes,  Socrates,  that  will  be  his  way  when 
he  is  in  earnest ;  he  will  do  the  other,  as  you  say,  only 
as  an  amusement. 

Soc.  And  can  we  suppose  that  he  who  knows  the 
just  and  good  and  honorable  has  less  understanding 
in  reference  to  his  own  seeds  than  the  husbandman?  \ 


PHAEDRUS 


445 


Phaedr.  Certainly  not. 

Soc.  Then  he  will  not  seriously  incline  to  write  them 
in  water  with  pen  and  ink  or  in  dumb  characters  which 
have  not  a  word  to  say  for  themselves  and  can  not 
adequately  express  the  truth? 

Phaedr .  No,  that  is  not  likely. 

Soc.  No,  that  is  not  likely  —  in  the  garden  of  let¬ 
ters  he  will  plant  them  only  as  an  amusement,  or  he 
will  .write  them  down  as  memorials  against  the  Tor  - 
getfulness  of  old  age,  to  be  treasured  by  him  and  his 
equals  when  they,  like  him,  have  one  foot  in  the  grave; 
and  he  will  rejoice  in  beholding  their  tender  growth; 
and  they  will  be  his  pastime  w  hile  others  are  watering 
the  garden  of  their  souls  with  banqueting  and  the  like. 

Phaedr.  A  pastime,  Socrates,  as  noble  as  the  other 
is  ignoble,  wken  a  man  is  able  to  pass  time  merrily  in 
the  representation  of  justice  and  the  like. 

Soc.  True,  Phaedrus.  But  nobler  far  is  the  serious 
pursuit  of  the  dialectician,  wdio  finds  a  congenial  soul, 
and  then  with  knowledge  engrafts  and  sows  w^ords 
which  are  able  to  help  themselves  and  him  who  planted 
them,  and  are  not  unfruitful,  but  have  in  them  seeds 
w^hich  may  bear  fruit  in  other  natures,  nurtured  in 
other  ways  —  making  the  seed  everlasting  and  the 
possessors  happy  to  the  utmost  extent  of  human  hap¬ 
piness. 

Phaedr.  Yes,  indeed,  that  is  far  nobler. 

Soc.  And  now,  Phaedrus,  having  agreed  upon  the 
premisses  we  may  decide  about  the  conclusion. 

Phaedr.  About  what  conclusion? 

Soc.  About  Lysias,  whom  we  censured,  and  his  art 
of  writing,  and  his  discourses,  and  the  rhetorical  skill 
or  want  of  skill  which  w^as  shown  in  them;  for  he 
brought  us  to  this  point.  And  I  think  that  we  are 
now  pretty  well  informed  about  the  nature  of  art  and 
;ts  opposite. 


446 


PHAEDRUS 


Phaedr.  Yes,  I  think  with  you;  but  I  wish  that 
you  would  repeat  what  was  said. 

Soc.  Until  a  man  knows  the  truth  of  the  several 
particulars  of  which  he  is  writing  or  speaking,  and 
is  able  to  define  them  as  they  are,  and  having  defined 
them  again  to  divide  them  until  they  can  be  no  longer 
divided,  and  until  in  like  manner  he  is  able  to  discern 
the  nature  of  the  soul  and  discover  the  different  modes 
of  discourse  which  are  adapted  to  different  natures, 
and  to  arrange  and  dispose  them  in  such  a  way  that 
the  simple  form  of  speech  may  be  addressed  to  the 
simpler  nature,  and  the  complex  and  composite  to  the 
complex  nature  —  until  he  has  accomplished  all  this, 
he  will  be  unable  to  handle  arguments  according  to 
rules  of  art,  as  far  as  their  nature  allows  them  to  be 
subjected  to  art,  either  for  the  purpose  of  teaching 
or  persuading ;  —  that  is  the  view  which  is  implied  in 

the  Whole  preceding  argument. 

Phaedr.  Yes,  that  was  our  view,  certainly. 

Soc.  Secondly,  as  to  the  justice  of  the  censure 
which  was  passed  on  speaking  or  writing  discourses  — 
did  not  our  previous  argument  show  —  ? 

Phaedr.  Show  what? 

Soc.  That  whether  Lysias  or  any  other  writer  that 
ever  was  or  will  be,  whether  private  man  or  statesman, 
writes  a  political  treatise  in  his  capacity  of  legislator, 
and  fancies  that  there  is  a  great  certainty  and  clear¬ 
ness  in  his  performance,  the  fact  of  his  writing  as  he 
does  is  only  a  disgrace  to  him,  whatever  men  may  say. 
Eor  entire  ignorance  about  the  nature  of  justice  an(^ 
injustice,  and  good  and  evil,  and  the  inability  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  the  dream  from  the  reality,  can  not  in  trutr^ 
be  otherwise  than  disgraceful  to  him,  even  though  h|  t 
have  the  applause  of  the  whole  world. 

Phaedr.  Certainly.  .  f 

Soc.  But  he  who  thinks  that  in  the  written  worp 


PHAEDRUS 


447 


there  is  necessarily  much  which  is  not  serious,  and  that 
neither  poetry  nor  prose,  spoken  or  written,  are  of 
any  great  value  —  if,  like  the  compositions  of  the 
rhapsodes,  they  are  only  recited  in  order  to  be  believed, 
and  not  with  any  view  to  criticism  or  instruction ;  and 
who  thinks  that  even  the  best  of  them  are  but  a  remi¬ 
niscence  of  what  we  know,  and  that  only  in  principles 
of  justice  and  goodness  and  nobility  taught  and  com¬ 
municated  orally  and  written  in  the  soul,  which  is  the 
true  way  of  writing,  is  there  clearness  and  perfection 
and  seriousness;  and  that  such  principles  are  like 
legitimate  offspring ;  —  being,  in  the  first  place,  that 
which  the  man  finds  in  his  own  bosom;  secondly,  the 
brethren  and  descendants  and  relations  of  this  which 
has  been  duly  implanted  in  the  souls  of  others;  and 
who  cares  for  them  and  no  others  —  this  is  the  right 
sort  of  man;  and  you  and  I,  Phaedrus,  would  pray 
that  we  may  become  like  him. 

Phaedr.  That  is  most  assuredly  my  desire  and 
prayer. 

Soc.  And  now  the  play  is  played  out;  and  of  rhet¬ 
oric  enough.  Go  and  tell  Lysias  that  to  the  fountain 
and  school  of  the  Nymphs  we  went  down,  and  were 
bidden  by  them  to  convey  a  message  to  him  and  to 
other  composers  of  speeches  —  to  Homer  and  other 
writers  of  poems,  whether  set  to  music  or  not.  And 
to  Solon  and  the  writers  of  political  documents,  which 
they  term  laws,  we  are  to  say  that  if  their  composi¬ 
tions  are  based  on  knowledge  of  the  truth,  and  they 
can  defend  or  prove  them,  when  they  are  put  to  the 
test,  by  spoken  arguments,  which  leave  their  writings 
poor  in  comparison  of  them,  then  they  are  not  only 
poets,  orators,  legislators,  but  worthy  of  a  higher 
name. 

Phaedr.  What  name  is  that? 

*  Soc .  Wise,  I  may  not  call  them;  for  that  is  a  great 


448 


PHAEDRUS 


name  which  belongs  to  God  only,  —  lovers  of  wisdom 
or  philosophers  is  their  modest  and  befitting  title. 

Phaedr.  Very  good. 

Soc.  And  he  who  can  not  rise  above  his  own  com¬ 
pilations  and  compositions,  which  he  has  been  long 
patching  and  piecing,  adding  some  and  taking  away 
some,  may  be  justly  called  poet  or  speech-maker  or 
law-maker. 

Phaedr.  Certainly. 

S oc .  N ow  go  and  tell  this  to  your  companion. 

Phaedr.  But  there  is  also  a  friend  of  yours  who 
ought  not  to  be  forgotten. 

Soc.  Who  is  that? 

Phaedr.  Isocrates  the  fair. 

Soc.  What  of  him? 

Phaedr.  What  message  shall  we  $end  to  him? 

Soc.  Isocrates  is  still  young,  Phaedrus;  but  I  am 
willing  to  risk  a  prophecy  concerning  him. 

Phaedr.  What  would  you  prophesy? 

S oc.  I  think  that  he  has  a  genius  which  soars  above 
the  orations  of  Lysias,  and  he  has  a  character  of  a 
finer  mould.  My  impression  of  him  is  that  he  will 
marvellously  improve  as  he  grows  older,  and  that  all 
former  rhetoricians  will  be  as  children  in  comparison 
of  him.  And  I  believe  that  he  will  not  be  satisfied 
with  this,  but  that  some  divine  impulse  will  lead  him  «, 
to  things  higher  still.  F or  there  is  an  element  of  phi¬ 
losophy  in  his  nature.  This  is  the  message  which 
comes  from  the  gods  dwelling  in  this  place,  and  which 
I  will  myself  deliver  to  Isocrates,  who  is  my  delight; 
and  do  you  give  the  other  to  Lysias  who  is  yours. 

Phaedr.  I  will;  and  now  as  the  heat  is  abated  let 
us  depart. 

Soc.  Should  we  not  offer  up  a  prayer  first  of  all  to 
the  local  deities? 

Phaedr.  By  all  means. 


PHAEDRUS 


449 


Soc.  Beloved  Pan,  and  all  ye  other  gods  who  haunt 
this  place,  give  me  beauty  in  the  inward  soul;  and 
may  the  outward  and  inward  man  be  at  one.  May  I 
reckon  the  wise  to  be  the  wealthy,  and  may  I  have 
such  a  quantity  of  gold  as  none  but  the  temperate  can 
carry.  Anything  more?  That  prayer,  I  think,  is 
enough  for  me. 

Phaedr.  Ask  the  same  for  me,  for  friends  should 
have  all  things  in  common. 

Soc .  Let  us  go. 


;:im:  :;i3  ita 


iiipj^p 


HSinSjt.-uh!:: 

I  ttl&nitatctm 

hiinltHrtiir 
Itii'ijiiSimsH/ii 
|::S‘jH  iSiiiiWiii 

. 


iisiilii! 


iSRPSllii 


